


Looking Glass

by webcricket



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Angst, CastielXAU!Reader, Coda, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-05-13 12:29:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 48,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14748896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/webcricket/pseuds/webcricket
Summary: A summer hiatus series. The reader is a refugee from the apocalypse AU where angels pursue humans with righteous wrath under the rule of the archangel Michael. Against all odds, the reader awakens in a world where the apocalypse never happened and not everyone is who they seem to be. Does her heart truly long to save her world, or does it belong now to the last person she ever expected to give it to?Chapters will be 1-2K a piece, bridging episode 13X18 Bring 'em Back Alive through the finale and its aftermath (warning for SEASON 13 SPOILERS). The plan is to post an update every Thursday through the summer. Expect a smidgen of everything - angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, episode insert/coda, and smut.





	1. Of Monsters and Heroes

_Hot grit of sand between toes. Brown ridged swirl of a sea shell somehow cool to the touch on a day when everything else shimmers beneath reflective heat. Clean brine scent of breeze tangling salt-laced locks. Buttery soft taste of salt water taffy melting on tongue. Running into a wave. Twisting to brace against the impact. Limbs wild, body weightless, diving below the surface into enveloping silence – the endless blue sky and golden halo of sun an iridescent blur from this watery vantage._

When you break from the sea in a bubble burst of laughter to inhale a lungful of life there’s a man waiting. You’ve seen him before, but not _here_. He doesn’t belong here in his blackened overcoat, thick mass of chestnut hair parted in a harsh line to one side, a greased apparition of malevolence lurking in your happy haven of a summer day and bringing ruination to this bastion of safety in a bleak world no longer safe. Lazy sun-kissed weekends do not exist in this realm, _his_ realm.

He leans in nearer until the ocean tide rolls back in fearful retreat from his rasping breath and you are left exposed and thrashing, shriveling in the unrelenting scorching rays of the sun. 

He cups your cheeks, touch soft and tender as you recoil in repulsion. Pressing his forehead to yours, he whispers, “ _Be still_ ,” in a language you do not comprehend and through no will of your own you go limp and feel a sense of comfort flowing through your veins  _–_ a spreading sort of numbness and tingling warmth to which it would be inviting to succumb.

You fight the soothing sensation, rallying your parched throat and tongue to quiver a meek protesting moan – a practically inaudible gulp denoting your crumbling resistance. You know what he offers is false. The reprieve will be fleeting – just long enough for you to regather your senses so he might sadistically smash them once more.

Features a collection of uncontrollable chaotic convulsions verging on fondness, he nuzzles his nose to your cheek, the gentle and intimate act in stark contrast to his dark demeanor and the unforgiving manner with which he treated your dearly departed comrades, one of whom is rotting in the far corner, mouth agape in awe. Working his way toward your ear, his words emerge as a lilting hum that raises the hair on the back of your neck. “Have you had enough of this yet? Will you talk? It’s simple, little one. Tell me what I must know and all of this will end. Yes?”

Your gaze flits from your dead friend opposite to the glossy pair of black leather gloves carefully laid out on the table behind your tormentor. A single beam of sunshine streaming through a boarded window illuminates them and the haze of dust hanging in the air. Forced to remove them to ply his trade of torture, you wonder briefly about the caged anger that must be provoked by the ritual and unleashed in this celestial creature who wears them to avoid begriming himself of the earth.

Grasping you by the jaw, rough fingers digging into your flesh in mounting impatience, he snaps your chin to the side to study your expressionless aspect. “Or do not tell me, and I will crack your skull to find the pretty pearl of knowledge you contain.”

Blinking, vision blurred by salt you’re certain came not from tears but from that long ago sea, you look into his milky white eye – opaque and dull like a dead fish – and the other shining sinister blue. You slowly shake your head _no_.

“Very well, my little one.” His upper lip skips and starts into a satisfied sneer. His fingers glide to encircle your brow.

Someone is screaming. Your brain feels like bursting with a pressure building from the inside out. Lava, molten and oozing, edges to erupt at the temples. Your teeth grit until every root rebels against the jaw, a mouthful of smoldering coals you cannot spit out. The metallic tang of blood from the chomped flesh inside a cheek chokes your vibrating throat.

The memories surge all at once – in a single second, less than a second – too much for a human brain to handle as he sifts through them. Nuances of the past rise and assert themselves in no particular order and the screaming grows louder. The man rips through every one of those recollections and sets the shattered remnants ablaze. He does not find what he seeks in this corner of conflagration, and so he delves deeper still, igniting the awkward remembrance of a first kiss at the county fair at the peak of a Ferris wheel.

A patter of gunfire, the displeased gravel growl of your angelic persecutor, and the tentative brush of lips coated with the sticky sweet residue of cotton candy to yours are the last things you experience before everything shifts to nothing.

“Over here, she’s breathing!” Dean shouts and stoops over your folded form, two fingers pressed to your jugular. He squints at your blanched lips, concerned greens roaming your pale skin, spattered purple and raw in more spots than not and caked with filth. He feels a persistent ragged pulse and begins to untie you from the chair to which you are bound. He winces as he unlashes cords buried deep into sinew and bone – evidence of your struggle.

Arthur Ketch stows one of his two withdrawn guns and steals up behind the hunter to examine his finding. Excluding the angel who managed to escape them in an armored truck, you are the sole survivor, barely flush with life, in a blood-saturated cabin significantly smaller than the mass grave of bodies heaped outside and the singed wingspans of the two dead angels out back. Humming his critical nasal summation of the scene, he eyes the jagged end of green-tinged bone protruding from the sopping wet crimson stained fabric of your pant leg and curls his lip in aversion.

Dean glowers over his shoulder at his unhelpful cohort, asking, “What?”

Ketch gestures the business end of his gun in your general direction and shrugs. “Look at her, she’s beyond saving. That fracture has festered too long. Best put her out of her misery and keep moving. We haven’t time for charity.”

Dean reaches out to swat away the smooth steel barrel of the gun and, repositioning himself between you and the itchy trigger finger Englishman, continues working on your binds, muttering, “You really are a heartless bastard.”

Ketch arches a brow, correcting, “I prefer the term pragmatic. Being a hero gets you killed.”

Dean slices through the final coil of rope around your ankle and snorts, “What about being human?”

Ketch’s heightened brow sinks into a fissure of forehead. “She’ll only slow us down. Even if she was conscious, she can’t walk.”

“I’m getting her out of here.” Dean winds one hand behind your waist and the other beneath your knees, trying his best to be delicate in his movements so as not injure you further internally or exacerbate the visible wounds.

“And then what? What’s the plan? We’ve less than two hours to get back to the rift. I don’t recall any hospitals on our route of return.” Ketch shuffles aside, watching Dean do all the grunt work of lifting your broken and bloodied figure.

“Then I take her to the bunker and figure it out from there.” Dean hoists you, cradling you in his arms. He marches forward, kicks at the door, and sunshine swallows your shared silhouettes as he steps outside.

In the brightness spilling into the cabin, Ketch admires the burnished leather gloves forgotten in haste on the table. He tucks them in his pocket for safekeeping and follows Dean into the fray.


	2. Welcome to Bunkerland

Humming contentment, inhabiting the sluggish middle-ground between sleep and sentience, you loll to one side of the bed. Knees curling to your chest, you nuzzle your chin deeper into the pillow and slide a hand beneath the cushion to cuddle it closer. The cotton fabric is cool and crisp to the touch. The clean floral hint of the dryer sheet with which it tumbled – and recently, judging by the fresh fragrance – tickles your nose. Poised at the brim of awareness, consciousness gently cascading over your somnolent senses, untroubled comfort blankets you for another blissful moment before wakeful alarm courses through your languid frame.

Fighting the reflex to flail off the sheets and flee, balling the pillow in your fists, you force yourself to freeze and formulate a plan. You still the dissenting shudder of your body as your heart sprints and adrenaline floods your veins and urges you contrariwise – every double beat a deafening drum to _rise and run_ in your ears. You drink in a deep calming breath through your nose, reciting the mantra to _stop and think_ over the wail of your pulse. Reaching into your memory to try to figure out what happened, you contort bodily and choke back a scream. Thinking _hurts_.

Mind a dense haze of smoke, brain a smoldering black coal that flares in a painful fiery burst when you try to recall any detail of the _who, what, where, when, why,_ or _how_ of being _here_ , you default, instead, to basic survival instinct. You have an indistinct sense that wherever this place is, it’s very unlike the last place. You feel that you’re safe; some piece of you, however – a bit of coding programmed into your DNA – knows it’s not safe to trust _safe_ anymore because nowhere is really safe from … You gasp at the galvanizing flash of lighting striking down the attempt at thought. _Not_ thinking is hard.

_Enough_. Your eyelids separate into the slimmest of slits necessary to admit light in order to inventory the immediate surroundings: _Bedside lamp, bulb illuminated and radiating a warm glow. Digital red numbers on an alarm clock indicating a time of 5:37PM. Glass of perfectly clear water, three-quarters full. Sheet of paper, thick enough to stand on the folded edge, a message scribbled across in bold black ink._

You clamp your lashes shut and take a slow and measured inhalation. Holding the air in your lungs until they begin to burn, you listen. You perceive only the rapid tinny race of your bounding heart. Identifying no imminent peril, you pop open both eyes and blow out the hot torrent of checked breath, panting afterward in relief. Swinging your legs over the side of the mattress, attention sweeping the bare walls, single wooden door, and beige-brown color palette of the windowless utilitarian room, your focus settles once more on the piece of paper on the nightstand.

You pluck it up to examine the note evidently intended for you as there doesn’t seem to be anyone else here. It reads: _Back soon – make yourself at home._ It’s a concise welcome, but does nothing whatsoever to clear up the confusion of where you are or how you came to be here. Your temples throb as you tread dangerously near a rising recollection. Rubbing at the ache, you notice ink bleeding through from the other side and flip the sheet: _Stay put – don’t break anything._ The handwriting is as different as the vaguely threatening sentiment and equally meaningless to you.

Tossing aside the paper, you hop to the floor. You suck in a quick shot of air to shallowly expand your ribcage and peer down at the external state of matters stretching from your neck to toes. It isn’t the oversized fleece-lined sweatshirt hanging off one shoulder, extending well beyond your fingertips and shrouding you to your thighs that shocks you. Nor is it the wide-legged plaid pajama pants rolled up to your ankles that come as a surprise.

You tentatively shift your weight from one leg to the other and jump again. Your bare feet land with a quiet and painless thud on the tile. The pleased smile – small as it is – has no time to brush its subtle curve onto your mouth before a cinch of blazing embers ensnares your skull. Knees buckling, you sink shrieking to the floor as you realize your left leg isn’t the shattered limb you remember. You badly broke the leg when you lost your footing on a rugged mountain pass leading to a camp in Dayton, Ohio and the rumored promise of safety there. _Safety_. Through the crippling agony, specifics of the incident of failing to outrun a band of angels and your subsequent capture return to you.

When you recover your faculties, tears puddle on the porcelain where your forehead presses to the cold tile. Tongue swiping your lips, you taste the salt streaking your cheeks. Rocking onto your heels, you clasp your fingers around your wrists in turn and run the pads of them over the smooth skin. Like your fractured limb they, too, are unmarked by the tight binds that secured you to the chair in the cabin where … You flatten your palms to the floor in front of you to keep from crumpling at the emergent memory of _him._

_Castiel_ – the other angels called him Castiel, a seraphim sadist, strangely sentimental. He’s the one who set your brain ablaze. He wanted information about where the refugees were gathering and why. And he especially wanted to know the whereabouts of someone named Jack. He lit brush fires in your mind as if to smoke the information out. You don’t know _jack_ , about any Jack, but you were willing to die before divulging anything to that divine douchebag.

You dare to think, perhaps, you _are_ dead. Sitting upright, you glance around the room with that viewpoint. Imagining yourself in Heaven instills no solace. Heaven is chock full of angels and you’d rather be in Hell. You’ve heard it’s pretty decent digs since the apocalypse went down and all the demons went topside. You don’t expect anyone in power much cares where human souls end up nowadays.

From this vantage point, headache abating, you spot a square of pink in the center of the door you missed before. Standing up, you cross the room and squint at the writing: _Kitchen is to the right if you want something to eat._ It’s the same friendly scroll as the note bidding you to make yourself at home. Your stomach rumbles with enthusiasm. There’s a second square tucked below the first with a warning: _Don’t drink all the beer._

“Seriously?” you snicker aloud. “Somebody’s in a bitchy mood.” You imagine it was quite the row these chuckleheads with warring memos had before they deigned to leave you here alone, wherever the heck _here_ actually is.

Turning the doorknob, you step into the hall to make your way to the kitchen. Your eyes dart to each steady bulb of light illuminating the way. You find it curious there is no loud whirring roar of a generator providing the electricity. Until now, you believed electricity of this sort, available at the whim of a finger flicking a switch, was an extinct species – mere magical fodder for children’s bedtime stories.

You pause before a gaping door and peer into what must be the kitchen based on the stainless steel storage stretching along the walls. This room, you note, like the one you awoke in, is also windowless and tidy in efficiency. Throat itchy with thirst and thinking of the untouched glass of water you left bedside, you swallow dryly and cross over to the sink. Purely for your own amusement, since it also doesn’t exist anymore in a convenient manner, you twist on the hot water tap and cup your hands beneath the spout. Steamy liquid warmth instantly flows over and fills your upturned palms. Snorting a laugh, you dip your head to the basin to splash your skin with the soothing spray.

It’s with your face ducked under the faucet, letting the warmth pour across your foolishly grinning features, fully submerged in this fantasy come to life, fingers clasped to the sink edge to keep from falling in, that you fail to hear the gravelly voice resounding on approach in the hall over the rush of the water.

“Sam! Dean? I’m back. I have good news and bad news. The good news is, I was able to enter Heaven and the other angels didn’t murder me as we anticipated they would. The bad news is, they didn’t murder me because there are only a handful of us left and-” Cas swallows the remainder of his report as he leans over the kitchen threshold to study the peculiar scene.

Although he healed your physical injuries after Dean dragged you through the rift, he hadn’t expected you to wake given the sustained suffering of your mind. Even an angel cannot always undo the work of angels. He’s glad to see he was wrong. Determining his silent stare could be considered rude, he clears his throat, steps into the room, and announces his presence. “Hello?”

Through the blear of water wetting your lashes, you see a figure – a man, judging from the broadness of his shoulders – drifting toward you from the doorway. “Sorry, I-” You recoil from the sink, apologizing out of awkwardness. Slick fingers scrambling to turn off the faucet, you simultaneously grope along the counter for something to wipe your eyes.

“Here.” The raspy word is followed by a cloth laid against your arm.

“Thanks.” You dab the cotton to your face. “I-” When you look up from the towel, the man’s eyes lock on yours, both of them blue. The hue – an unmistakable shade seared into your memory – instills you with horror.


	3. The Quote Unquote Situation

Sam’s gaze locks on his brother’s mouth flexing wide; hazel horror enlarging in the suspense, his own mandible gapes and aches with a pang of physical sympathy at viewing the freakish yawn of square jawline. A cringe creeps across his shoulders, constricting the muscles there so that his neck recoils into itself. Unable to tear his aghast gawp from the impending massacre, he rubs the phantom pain afflicting his chin with a thumb and watches.

Jaw unhinged and snake-like, Dean’s teeth and lips warp in seeming docudrama slow motion to engulf a full corner of a meat-stuffed soggy sesame seed bedecked bun swimming in red sauce. A piece of saturated bread sheers away under the stress, carrying with it a rubbery appendage of artificial orange cheese that extends from his grease glistening fingers to the plate.

Sam can almost hear a melodramatic British narration of the scene in the dull background din of the diner: _‘Witness the fervor of the squirrel – that eager huntsman of epicurean delights – consuming what may be his final meal in single-minded preparation for the coming wintery apocalypse.’_ If it were farther from the truth, it might be funny. Despite this grave thought, Sam tries a relaxed smile on for size so as not to dampen his brother’s glad mood.

The elder Winchester lets out a long, low, and borderline sinful groan of decadent approval; a stupid gooey-gummed grin stretches his stuffed cheeks. Freckled lids flutter to drape across greens glittering with wanton gluttony. “Ohmygod,” he moans around the mouthful of chili cheeseburger ecstasy. With no room for spoken words to escape, gobs of chili dribble from the corner of his overfull mouth and ooze down his shirt with every muffled syllable. “You have to try one of these!”

Staggered to silence by the sloppy show, Sam’s slim smile curls up and twitches on one side in a patent blend of outward revulsion and amusement as Dean devours another bite before bothering to swallow the first.

For the Winchesters – Dean in particular – it’s often like this on the other side of a whopping failure sandwiched by a win. Food, drink, and a frivolous attitude abound to celebrate a turnaround in their favor. It’s Dean’s version of having room to breathe after having a portion of the weight of the world lifted from their chests; Sam generally obliges to play the role of hapless bystander.

For the moment, anyway, the knockout punch of losing Gabriel and their source of rift-revealing archangel grace to use to journey to the Armageddon-devastated universe to rescue their mom, Jack, and – if they’re feeling magnanimous – maybe even Ketch, is semi-superseded by Rowena’s redemption; after all, she’s a powerful ally. Sam allows himself to crack a compact authentic smile about _that_ witchy bit of progress. Perhaps the situation finally is turning around for them.

Dean’s cell phone, discarded on the tabletop in front of him beside an as yet unused napkin, jumps to life; it vibrates and blasts out the opening instrumental of _Stairway to Heaven_. Gastronomic orgasm denied mid-chew, the hunter drops the dripping burger on his plate with a juicy slosh. He smacks his sticky hands together; and in lieu of the obvious choice of using the readily available napkin, he swipes his messy fingers across his pants. “It’s Cas,” he mumbles.

“Ya think?” Sam sasses, spiking a brow as if he didn’t already know by the not-so-subtle ringtone.

Dean scowls at his brother. Wiping his face with the back of a sleeve, he snatches up the phone. “Hey Cas! You’re not dead!” He punctuates the proclamation with a smirk even though Cas can’t see the facial quirk to appreciate it; not that he isn’t happy their angelic ally is alive – he’s thrilled – it’s just that this ‘ _Hail Mary!’_ notion of his to ask Heaven for help was an idiotic gambit in a long line of rash ideas using the angel’s own life as collateral _again_.

Castiel’s blues spin upward in their sockets to regard the drab grey ceiling of the bunker hallway. He can hear both the conflict of condescension and relief fringing in Dean’s tone. He’ll never admit it aloud to his friend, but in instants like this a simple ‘ _Hey man, I knew you’d get through this one!’_ would go a long way toward bolstering his ever-floundering morale. Instead, he finds Dean’s default setting of shocked sounding jocular jabs when wrong about stuff – stuff like the wisdom of Heaven’s arguably second least favorite fallen son trying to crash the pearly gates to implore aid and the peril of undertaking such a task – pointless and demeaning redirection.

He’s a billion-odd-year-old being capable of making his own decisions – poorly informed, plotted, or otherwise – and taking responsibility for the outcomes. He asked Dean once to _show him some respect_ ; he’s still waiting on it. And anyhow, if they’re keeping tabs on who has died or almost died more times in desperate dim-witted self-sacrificing plots to save the day, Dean’s the one with the winning score. The angel offers a snarky rejoinder instead of pointing out this fact. “While I appreciate your unwavering confidence in my ability to not get dead _again_ , this isn’t about the angels.”

“It isn’t?” Dean laughs in nervy anticipation of the update’s evidently non-angelic punchline even though he knows odds are the joke won’t be remotely funny and invariably involves worse news; Cas is just about the least hilarious – on purpose – person he knows.

“What’s going on?” Sam prods from across the table. He recognizes his brother’s uncomfortable chuckle. “Is it about Gabriel?”

Dean catches the angel’s slow nasal inhalation of breath happening through the speaker. Shaking his head, he holds up an admonitory finger at his brother to beg silence.

After a pregnant pause and a quick glance at the locked door of the bunker sleeping quarters room designated by the number 15 – which also happens to be the angel’s chosen room – as he paces by it on hallway patrol, Cas states, “I’m in the bunker and we have a … _situation_.”

“What kind of situation? Did you drink the last beer?” In Dean’s mind this is both the best and worst case scenario defining a situation at the bunker.

“Situation?” Forehead corkscrewing into a knot in the middle, Sam ignores Dean’s warning digit.

Peeling the phone from his ear, Cas halts in the hall to grudgingly glower at it; and via it, Dean. Snorting sharp through his nose, his frustration flecked blues again roll skyward at the Winchester taking nothing about this call seriously. He regrets not choosing to call Sam instead. Pinching the bridge of his nose, jamming the device back to his ear, he grumbles, “Dean, this is serious.”

Air of good humor precipitously threatening to plummet, Dean gripes in retort, “It’s you, of course it’s serious. Once, just once, maybe you could lighten up a little bit.”

“Need I remind you that Michael is maneuvering as we speak to breech the walls of his world to crossover and destroy this one, and you’re suggesting that I _lighten up_?” Cas doesn’t bother to repress the gravel of a reproachful rumble grating his voice.

“Just a little bit,” Dean answers in smug satisfaction at successfully riling the angel who ruined his lunch.

“Perhaps that would be a viable option if your apocalyptically traumatized houseguest hadn’t attempted to murder me a few minutes ago with a meat cleaver in the kitchen and then barricade herself in my bedroom after she fled.” And here his friends had conveyed worry about homicidal angels – all the extant nine or ten of them currently keeping Heaven from flickering out of existence forever; not that anyone’s going to ask him about _that_ concerning development.

It sounds too much like a rousing game of _Clue_ for Dean not to snicker. “She tried to off you … with a meat cleaver?”

“What’s going on?” Sam asks, making a mental note to request that Cas call him first in the future – if only for the sake of efficiency.

Cas huffs a longsuffering sigh, “Well, _Dean_. Evidently she thought the bag of flour and variety of canned goods hurled at my face weren’t sufficient to subdue me although I offered no protest. Suffice to say, she’s not a big fan of angels. Though, along with the physical violence, she used much more colorful phrasing to make the point.”

Dean scoffs, “Why the hell did you tell her you’re an angel? You know where she’s from angels are public enemy number one.”

“That’s the problem – I didn’t say anything; I didn’t have to. Somehow, she knows me; knows my name. And she’s absolutely terrified of me. I don’t know what to-”

“Alright,” Dean interrupts, gathering the gist that he and Sam need to hoof it back to the bunker before their rescued apocalyptic butterfly takes flight and flaps her wings to cause chaos somewhere in their world. “We’re a half day’s drive out. Hang tight.” He shoves his plate aside with a frown, muttering, “And maybe in the meantime, try apologizing or something to smooth things over.”

The angel’s brow furrows at the proposal insinuating he wronged you. “Apologize for what?” Apologize for healing you? For being courteous? For being … himself?

“Figure it out.”

“Dean? _Dean!_ ” Call disconnected, the angel clamps his fingers across the black screen and drops his arm limply to his side. When it comes to the number of times a pair of angelic eyes can ascend to their heavenly zenith as a result of a solitary phone call, Castiel holds the record encompassing all of creation. Glaring at a cobweb strung across a corner of the ceiling, the confused notion he should be sorry nonetheless niggles him. In healing you, he remembers the rejuvenating touch of his grace brushing the outskirts of the charred wasteland of your mind – a swath of still smoking cauterized devastation where he did not dare venture without permission. He remembers the broken vow necessity of what he did to Donatello. He wonders if he – the other _him_ – did that to you.

You lift your earlobe from where it’s been compressed to numbness listening to the conversation happening outside the wooden door. Looking at floor, in the trickle of light streaming through the space at the bottom of the doorframe into the darkened room, you see the shadow of the seraph shift, hesitate, then disappear. The words he spoke to this Dean character echo in your mind and wobble your legs: _‘Need I remind you that Michael is maneuvering as we speak to breech the walls of his world to crossover and destroy this one …’_

Sinking to sit, you wrap your arms around your knees and continue to anxiously watch the gap of uninterrupted light for any sign of his return. Your body rocks in a reflex of comfort. Michael’s world, you think, _your_ world. And … _this one_. It would explain why Castiel, _this_ Castiel, appeared so genuinely startled when you lashed out at him. Why he didn’t attack. Why he mustered only enough movement to shield himself and clear a path for you to escape. And also why he hasn’t broken down the door to finish his fiery interrogation.

You shiver and hug your limbs tighter. Or maybe this is all a part of his sadistic endgame – a trick of the mind meant to confuse you, to dupe you into letting down your guard – smoke, and now _mirrors_.


	4. Somewhere Under the Rainbow

_Knock. Knock. Knock._

Gum-stuck lashes flare and blink against the luminance emanating from beneath the door to shine a swath of blinding brightness across your sleep-bleared vision. You stir, stiff, unfurling from an uncomfortable fetal position of fitful slumber to lay flat on your back. The muscles of your lower spine spasm; vertebra snap and pop as you stretch – a belated crackled choral scolding for the unwise decision to allow exhaustion of vigilance to overcome you to the point of passing out on the floor where you sat wound tense, watching and waiting for Castiel to make a move toward ending the stalemate. It occurs to you that for a dreamland ploy contrived to lull you into a false sense of security by a being who doesn’t require sleep, the aches, annoyances, and various wholly human subtleties of waking are especially convincing.

 _Knock. Knock._ Politely persistent after the briefest of pauses – _knock._

Staring at the ceiling of this strange place – initial shock and suspicion over your surroundings somewhat subdued on this rousing by the firm conviction that the only plausible explanation is that you’re being tricked – a dry groan of protest at needing to muster some sort of reaction scratches soft and mouse-like in murmur at your throat. You smack your tongue against the arid ridged roof of your mouth in a sandy spit-less swallow.

You’re still tired despite the sleep. Tired of ten years of surviving the apocalypse – an unbalanced fight which serves simply to delay the inevitable end of humanity. Tired of being pursued with the rest of humankind to the literal ends of the earth by Heaven’s army to be blighted like ants, colony by colony; stomped out at first en masse in groups gathered for safety, and now souls smote off the surface of the planet individually. And you’re _really_ tired of whatever ruse this angel dallying outside the door instead of barging in to blot you out of existence is playing at to prolong your suffering.

 _Knock-knock-knock._ Rapid light taps of knuckle, as though he feels badly for disturbing you.

That’s a laughable thought – an angel _feeling_ anything.

The tenor of his voice resounds with church bell clarity through the wood and your bones – a gently reverberating tone. “You must be hungry. I brought you something to eat.” Another pause. “I’ll just leave it here, outside the-”

Tired and – he’s intuited correctly – _hungry_. Clambering to your feet, you throw the door open so wide it strains the hinges as it swings on its arc to the farthest limit permitted by the squealing metal. Judging by his staggered backward step and the soundless stammer of his jaw struggling for words, he wasn’t expecting the bold action either. It’s precisely why you chose it; or rather, why your belly did. Your brain, glad for a break in required reason, partly agrees two can play at this game of courteous subterfuge. Given the opportunity to fill the cramped void of your stomach, you risk the chance you’ll be killed with kindness; there are worse ways to go –you’ve had the terrifying good fortune to witness or hear about most of them.

The moment your gaze alights upon his stunned blue one, the angel casts his focus – without betraying any sign of outward malice – to the tray perched in his palm whereon a sandwich rests perfectly centered on a porcelain ivory plate beside a glass half full of viscous white liquid you assume is milk. The crust is meticulously cut away, and the bread is halved and quartered on the diagonal revealing co-mingling whirls of red berry jelly and creamy peanut butter smearing the exposed edges of the white dough. “I’m afraid it’s nothing special. It was between PB and J and canned chicken soup with stars.” His regard flits upward to study your reaction to his effort at hospitality.

Too famished to care about his steady stare, the graze of your tongue across the chapped flesh of your lips at the welcome sight of the sandwich is shameless and involuntary.

He interprets your response as favorable and thrusts the tray closer to you. Attempting to lighten the mood with a joke about your kitchen weaponry of choice earlier, he states with sublimely executed sham seriousness, “As you can see, the sandwich won out. I figure you and I both have had enough of exchanging canned goods for one day.”

Unaffected by his un-angelic endeavor at humor, you snatch the plate from the tray and turn to retreat deeper into the bedroom.

He hesitates at the threshold.

You plop on the end of the mattress, springs squeaking under your bounce, and jam a full triangle of sandwich into your mouth in one bite. Stickiness of the peanut butter intensifying to glue on your teeth, you instantly regret not also swiping the milk.

Cas overcomes his qualms and your wordlessness to follow you into the space, which, technically speaking, is actually _his_ space; and, you did leave the door open in seeming invitation. Walking toward you, he picks up the glass of milk and holds it out at arm’s length without getting any nearer than necessary.

You grab it without a word or look, greedily gulping most of the thick liquid and swirling the remainder over your peanut butter-coated gums. In your periphery, you warily watch the angel move position to the desk hugging the wall opposite the bed where he shuffles some things aside to make room to discard the tray. It’s all so . . . _civilized_. It’s also infuriating – a stupid game of cat and mouse; you’ve taken the bait, but the trap hasn’t sprung and you can’t fathom why.

Sliding out the chair, he revolves it on one wooden leg, sits to face you, and folds his hands upon his lap – an utter picture of patient placidity. As you chew and gulp the final morsels of your meal, scraping every speck of oozed jelly off the plate with a glide of your fingertip while expecting the whetted blade of a holy guillotine to plunge any second to hew your soul from your body, Cas employs Dean’s advice to offer an apology. “I’m sorry I scared you earlier.”

Without acknowledging the validity of his statement or your building indignation at the over-the-top phony turnabout of his character to peddle compassion instead of pain, your attention roams to the barren walls of the room illuminated in the bright glow of hall light as you scour idly for every last sticky sweet crumb collected at the corners of your mouth with your tongue.

He tries a change of tactic. “I could make you another sandwich if you’d like.”

Your eyes land on his and beyond the baleful color of blue defining them that sends shivers shooting across your skin and stokes the smoky shadows of the inferno still smoldering in your mind, you also perceive something else – something akin to genuine sincerity in their shine. You wag your chin, less in answer and more in self-reminder that this is nothing but artful angelic cunning.

“You probably have questions.” Cas alters direction once again to incite a response. He has questions too. Mainly one; his fingers nervously fidget, fretting over the biggest unknown of all to him – how you know his name. What _he_ did.

It’s not until you see the surrendering sideways shift of his head to exhale a soft sigh into his shoulder that you speak. “Am I a prisoner here?”

“No.” He keeps his gaze on a bit of dirt marring the floor lest he startle you back into your apparent shell of animalistic frightened silence.

“So-” You touch a preparatory toe to the floor and eyeball the exit. The complications of being barefoot and geographically disoriented do not figure into your escape strategy. “I’m free to leave any time I want?”

“Not exactly.” He sighs again – heavier this time, ribcage visibly rising and falling in . . . is that . . . _regret_? It sure looks a hell of a lot like regret. He tilts his grave gaze toward you.

You glare at him, bile rising. “Then I _am_ a prisoner.”

He has the audacity to appear apologetic under your obstinate ogle.

Scowling, you pull your legs underneath you in a recalcitrant cross-legged roost.

“It’s complicated,” he offers – as if this will placate your concerns about captivity.

You weave your arms into an X of right-angled elbows to match the bent of your lower limbs. Your entire body breathes defensiveness. “Explain it to me then. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

The angel’s lids narrow in unspoken acknowledgment of the accuracy of your remark and remorse over the fact he is, however unwitting, your warden and will be forced to keep you here if you risk a bid for freedom. Scrutinizing the defiance hardening your expression, he can’t help but notice the delicately feminine features lending form to the fierce façade. There’s something familiar and magnetic about you, yet at the same time foreign. Shaking off the fleeting feeling, he verbally notes another detriment to further establishing rapport he wishes to correct before proceeding. “You know my name. What’s yours?”

“Dorothy,” you spit the inspired spur-of-the-moment lie through gritted teeth. “Now . . . your explanation.”

“Dorothy,” he repeats the moniker, accepting the fiction as truth. He loosens his intertwined fingers, gliding them to cap his knees as he leans forward in the chair. “The first thing you need to know is that you are not from this world.”

“So you’re saying I’m not in Kansas anymore?” you snort and wind your arms tighter around yourself; it doesn’t stop the sinking sensation of the hastily ingested PB&J churning in your stomach, nor does it penetrate your impudence be it factual information or misdirection. “Guess that must make you a flying monkey, eh?”

Recognizing the Oz references, he ignores the insult. “Your name isn’t Dorothy, is it?”

You smirk; for an angel, he’s quite astute. You don’t make any move to offer up your real name.

His brow bends in a deep furrow. “Actually, you _are_ in Kansas; in a bunker just outside Lebanon. And it wasn’t a tornado that ripped you from your world; it was a man named Dean Winchester. He brought you here through a rift – a tear between our two worlds. He saved your life. He and his brother, Sam, they’ll be back in a few hours. Perhaps you’d be more comfortable speaking to them about what happened.” He rubs his knees, scuff of his rough palms audible on the fabric of his trousers. Rising to stand, he gestures around the room, attitude diminishing to one of apathy. “Until then, it’s safer for you to stay here.”

“ _Safe_?” you snap, leaping from the bed to land in a toe-to-toe stance with him. Surge of adrenaline, fatigue fueled by sugar-high, fiasco of jumbled nerves – you don’t know what has gotten into you, but you shove at the solid expanse of his chest, urging him to lash out, to reveal his true nature. “Safe!” What he said, it’s too outlandish; too unbelievable to be reality. It would be easier if this was a trick of torture. You don’t know safe anymore; and you certainly don’t believe anywhere in the vicinity of an angel is _safe_. You don’t know how to do anything but rely on pure survival instinct; you’ve grown accustomed to war, and this situation doesn’t fit the militant mold.

You continue your wild provocation of him, searching his sympathetic eyes for the capacity for cruelty you know is contained therein. “Safe, with _you_? Ha!” You prod him, waiting for a scar to bleach the blue of one iris; waiting for the revelation. “You! The great Castiel, seraphim specialist in torment.” You pound your fists against his unmoving vessel.

The angels took everything from you – your family and friends, your home and possessions, your _world_ ; and when everything else was gone, this malignant seraph torched the only thing you had left to strengthen your will to hold on – the happy memories of everything you lost. He could at least have the degenerate decency to end what he began.

“ _Castiel_ ,” you hiss, “the same angel who laid waste to my mind and so many others seeking answers!” You punch at him one final time, the faltering remnant of your energy behind the blow.

“I’m sorry.” He grabs your wrists to still you and sees the deluge of tears spilling over your lashes to streak your reddened cheeks. He understands you needed _this_ – this purgative discharge of frustration, pent up fear, and rage. He understands from what you’ve said he – the other _him_ , but to your scattered senses a surrogate for the _same_ – owes you at least this much. _More_.

“So finish it!” The broken plea is unleashed from somewhere deep inside your soul as a choked scream of a shuddering sob. You wobble on unresponsive stilts for legs, verging on collapse from the exertion of the outburst.

He catches you to himself, wrapping his arms about you and drawing your trembling form to his torso to keep you from crumpling. He knows what it means to lose everything, too – to fall and crawl on hands and knees under the burden of it all waiting for the ground to open up and finally consume you. “I’m sorry that happened to you – to all of them. It’s done now. You’re safe here. Whatever you think of me, regardless of what happened in your world, I don’t want to hurt you.”

Numb and weakened, you don’t have anything left in you to resist the consolation.

He guides you to the bed, drapes down the sheets and tucks you in. Undeterred by the frightened wince wrinkling your forehead, he touches two fingers to your temple; a rush of warmth blankets and soothes your tremoring body. Looming next to you, sadness shadows his countenance as the same strange sentiment of familiarity tickles at his senses. Again dismissing the impression, he murmurs, “You require rest. You’re still healing. I’ll leave you.”

When he reaches the threshold, departing figure a black trench-coated silhouette in the spill of hall light, glove-less fingers poised to close the door, you whisper after him in a crumbling cadence. “Just because you say you don’t want to hurt me, doesn’t mean you won’t. It’s what you do.”

You’re referring, of course, to the other _him_ , but in Castiel’s heart – a boundless heart that has only ever tried to do the right thing and often failed – the angel knows this to be an accurate reflection on himself.


	5. An Olive Branch

Sat at the kitchen bench with a mug of room temperature black brew on the table before him – untouched, but within reach of his fingertips where he first placed it upon sitting – Castiel stares without seeing at the local section of a _Lebanon Times_ newspaper he found in the library so old the color of the paper borders on the pale yellow of ripening corn.

There’s a scout troop featured; a motley crew of pre-teens forever frozen in photograph form cleaning up a park on a sunny spring Sunday to celebrate Earth Day. The same jaundiced pig-tailed child – designated as Cindy M. of Kansas City, Brownie Troop 271 in byline – has been fishing with outstretched fingers for a castoff Styrofoam cup beneath a hedge for the past two hours. The report doesn’t indicate that the piece of litter ever made the short jaunt into the garbage bag clutched in her other hand that she drags behind where she poses in stooped smiling perpetuity for the picture – another of life’s unanswered mysteries; not that Cas is currently pondering said mystery.

The angel’s ears perk to the sound of your barefoot heels plodding in the hallway in gradual but steady approach. Evidently you’ve finished your investigation of the premises or, determining an escape attempt is impossible, given up. In either case, he hopes you didn’t find something more lethally effective than kitchen stuffs, brute bare-handed force, or unbarred emotion coincidentally thrumming an inner nerve of truth to wound him with; every such angelically injurious object he is aware of in the bunker is under lock and key excepting his personal blade.

There’s a chance he overlooked an unknown item in a dusty storage bin that you succeeded in unearthing in your explorations; it would be consistent with his luck – _good_ fortune demarcated by a fundamental lack thereof. It would also be consistent with his epically bad week – an already rough run of ill fate since his expulsion from the Empty exacerbated by Lucifer’s continued liberty, the resurrection, rescue, and subsequent high-tailing from commitment to creation of his brother Gabriel, an unnerving run-in with Naomi, the angel agent of much of his enduring grief, and then learning that Heaven is one or two celestial lights gone dark removed from permanent and catastrophic foreclosure; and, of course, there’s the latest complication of _you_.

In an effort to appear unruffled given your imminent arrival, he readjusts his posture; straightening his sloping spine and, for reasons of unacknowledged self-conscious impulsivity, the skewed knot of his tie, he redoubles his blind examination of the newspaper. The resulting effect lends itself to one of a spring coiled to maximum tension ready to fly off at the slightest disturbance. He flips the page with an exaggerated rustle to prove his utter indifference to your presence when you halt at the entryway and hesitate to crossover the door jamb to descend the two steps into the space he occupies.

Hyperaware, you freeze in suspense of animation to observe the scene like a bird cornered after tumbling down a chimney and emerging indoors without the familiar freedom of the sky in sight. His similarly caged reaction fascinates you considering you’re the one trapped in an underground maze with locked exits and disorientated by the kidnapping slash plummet down a rabbit hole into an alternate universe; that is, if he’s to be believed – and it’s still a big _if_ according to your muddled wits. At least the lark about being in a bunker appears to hold up under thorough examination.

In a preening motion, you brush the pad of your thumb over the glossy slip of a photo you discovered and hid in the roll of the oversized sweatshirt sleeve encasing your right wrist; you’ll soon see if his story stands up to closer scrutiny. You allow the angel has every reason to be edgy; you’ve physically assailed him – granted without any lasting consequences – twice. For all he knows, the third time’s the charm. You decide his increasing unease with each confrontation does lend a linear sense of credibility to the reality of the situation.

The bitter aroma of burned coffee tickles your nose. The coffee maker ceased percolating the beverage some time ago; left on, it has boiled down the liquid into pure caffeine concentrate. The heady result smells like welcome lucidity after your wanderings and ferries your feet of their own volition down the stairs and to the counter. You help yourself to a mug of the stuff. Gripping the heat radiant porcelain between your palms, lips pursed to blow a cooling breath across the russet shimmering surface, you recommence watching the wary angel.

Sensing your protracted silent stare, he makes a grand gesture of flicking to a new page and folding it in half with a noisier-than-necessary shake to examine with great interest through a narrowed gaze an advert at the bottom for a law firm boasting attorneys specializing in personal, automotive, and work-site injury related litigation – seems convincingly relevant given the prevailing impasse between you two.

You clear your throat just to be sure he knows you know you have his surreptitious attention despite the display to the contrary.

If it’s possible – and evidently it _is_ possible – he stiffens further. Still, he maintains the charade of ignoring you.

You liked him better when he was playing considerate host to your starring role as ungrateful violence-prone guest. _This_ – this total impassivity – lacks definition; it’s missing sharp edges for you to remonstrate bodily and emotionally against. It simply won’t _do._

“So, I’m guessing it was you that healed me?” you ask the loaded question as though you’re two acquaintances making small talk. Bringing the mug’s rim to your mouth, you suck a small sip and swirl the acrid swill over your tongue; it wants sugar, but you’re simultaneously certain no amount of sweetness could save it.

“That depends,” he answers without tearing his squint from the faded newsprint in order to deliberately avoid fully engaging you in whatever verbal skirmish you’re trying to instigate.

“On?” Since he refuses to grace you with a gaze, you aim the query at the back of his head; his hair explodes from his scalp in an unruly collection of loose chestnut curls – _not_ a Nazi-esque grease-tamed coif indicative of extreme control issues.

“On whether or not my answering affirmatively will aggravate you.” There it is – the steel of sharpened blade you want lashes out in the form of spoken sass; the gloves, so-to-speak, are _off_.

Recollecting the black leather gloved fingers of the _other_ one of him, you cringe at the metaphor conjured by your mind and swallow the chafing memory along with a second sip of God-awful coffee. In comparison to the interactions with your arson-aficionado interrogator, this angelic iteration is positively _charming_. It’s the first time the two of them seem separate entities to you. There’s something distinctly _softer_ about the seraph in front of you – the blunt of benevolence, rather than thorny malevolence, gilding his halo.

You round the table and drop onto the opposite bench into his lowered line of sight. Propping your elbows on the top, you extend a hand to rudely swat the paper out of his grasp. “Since when do angels care about how humans feel?”

He lifts his eyes to meet yours; a degree of doneness dulls the blue.

You can’t tell if he’s done specifically dealing with you, or just generally _done_.

The besieged intake of his breath is audible. He holds the lungful of air, mouth thin and tense, reluctant to offer any explanation for you to twist around as a weapon to stab into him in wordy retribution. Finally, mostly to dissuade your skeptical stare and his resultant discomfort, he grumbles, “I don’t want to quarrel with you. Your mind, it’s … in a very fragile state.”

“I feel fine,” you fib to armor your weakness. Abandoning your mug, inclining backward, you slide your arms to encircle your sides and shrug. Forget the fatigue – your brain feels like it’s being drawn and quartered through your ears with a winch. Any effrontery on your part at this point is a bluff, but you’ve learned the difference between life and death often relies on the lie.

“You’re not _fine_.” In a reverse of your retreating body language, he sets his elbows _on_ the table and leans forward, tone scolding. “You nearly died. You need to take it easy. I can’t help you recover if you insist on acting so … combative. This may come as a stark surprise to you, but as long as you aren’t suffering physically in a manner I can mend, the persistence of your foul mood is the least pressing of my concerns. There are more important matters at hand.”

He’s not wrong; and if you’re not mistaken, he’s expressed a continued – impatient, yet nonetheless _there_ – concern for your well-being despite his frustration. He’s unlike any angel you’ve ever encountered. You glower at him for a lengthy minute. Somewhere thirty seconds or so into the hushed trade of glares you decide to accept the roundabout articulated truce he offered. You give yourself a superfluous thirty additional seconds to change your mind, but it seems set on a conciliatory course for the moment. You reach out to retrieve your coffee and muse into the liquid before drinking a gulp. “You don’t talk like an angel.”

Mouth relaxing into soft pink pout, he assents to the cordial shift of atmosphere implied in the statement. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It was an observation,” you correct, filtering another swig of brown sludge through your teeth. “What you said before, about me not being from this world – it’s true?”

“It’s true.” He bobs his chin once.

You admire the scruff of beard shadowing his strong jaw; he’s remarkably handsome when he isn’t a monster trying to massacre you from the inside out. Shy of the superficial attraction, you avert your eyes to the neglected newspaper at center of the table. “And Michael, he’s trying to destroy this world, too?”

“You heard my conversation with Dean.” It’s not as though he made any effort to cover it up standing directly outside the door you were barricaded behind.

Your pupils widen with a surge of fear when you look up at him. “You said it was safe here. Nowhere Michael wants to be is safe.”

A slouch curves his spine as he sinks back into the chair. “Then I suppose, strictly speaking, that makes it less safe here than I initially suggested.”

Hugging your arms to your chest to subdue a rising shiver, your fingertips touch the photograph you found. The angel passes your provisional litmus test thus far, but your curiosity remains unabated; and it’s a distraction from the shattered illusion of safety. You withdraw the photo from the confines of the sleeve’s fabric, place it on the table, and slide it toward him with your pointer finger. “That’s you, Bobby Singer, Ellen and Jo, and the other two men I don’t know.”

You met Bobby Singer once, and immediately you understood him to be a rightfully paranoid man who doesn’t surround himself with, as he likes to say, ‘ _Idjits!_ ’ He’s supposed to be in Dayton where you were headed before _this_ detour. And Ellen and Jo are no different; dauntless women, at least the last you heard of them, daring a bid to cross the wastelands of Texas to breach the wall south of the states with a band of survivors in search of elusive safety. If they associated with this angel – and they did according to the pictorial evidence – you want to know the reason.

Cas slants his neck to better peer at the picture although he knows the details well – it’s the black and white snapshot commemorating the night before the day he joined Bobby, Ellen, Jo, and the brothers to confront the devil to prevent this world’s apocalypse; the day he chose humanity’s cause over Heaven – over himself. He gathers you must have found the keepsake in the top drawer of his desk – one of only a few mementos he saves. Catching the corner of the photo, he spins it and glides it nearer. Unlike the mystery of Cindy M. of Kansas City and her discarded cup, there’s no guessing at the fate of the people frozen there in time; a minute wistful smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.

“How do you know them? Have you been to my world before? Who are the other men?” Biting your lower lip, you stop yourself at three successive rapid-fire questions; you have many more.

The smile fades from his expression; his blues, sheened with sadness, rise to regard you. “Many of the same entities, human and angel, inhabit both worlds. These two men you don’t know, they’re the brothers Sam and Dean Winchester. We know destiny didn’t deign for them to exist in your world. But in this one, they stopped the apocalypse from happening.”

“And Bobby, Ellen, and Jo?”

“I think of them as friends. I like to think they felt the same comradery. Brave and selfless souls all.” Eyes darting down, he taps each of their anxiously smiling faces in turn. “They played their parts, courageous to the last.”

“ _Played_. So they’re-”

He looks up, cutting you off with the straightforward location of their mortal souls. “In Heaven.” He doesn’t add the, ‘ _For now_ , _for as long as Heaven is able to hold itself together.’_

In the requisite respectful interlude of a quiet few seconds to honor the memory of the dearly departed, it occurs to you that if there were more than one of all of them, then there may be another of _you_ in this world; and if there’s a you, then perhaps there’s the family you lost in yours. With this nascent knowledge of the possibility you could see your loved ones again, you begin to comprehend why the angel and his friends so adamantly want to keep you contained here in the bunker; and also, why you _must_ get out. 

Noticing the intense interest of the angel’s eyes tracing the contemplative lines of your features, you deflect the thought lest he eavesdrop. “Why do you keep the photograph then? You’re an angel, you could see them anytime you like.”

He looks at his lap, self-conscious of the personal query – he never really considered the _why_ of saving the photo; it seemed then and seems now natural to him to retain it. “I suppose you’d call it sentimentality,” he redirects, defaulting to the reason a human would hoard such an article.

Undeterred, captivated by an angel exhibiting flashes of actual emotion, especially genuine empathy for and affectionate attachment to humans, you reformulate. “And what would you call it?”

Weaving his fingers together, he snorts lightly through his nose – this time the small emergent smile is a disingenuous sardonic spasm of lip to mask manifest pain; you’ve touched upon another nerve, and one still raw judging by his reaction. “I’ve been told it’s an inherent weakness,” he mutters.

“Now you sound like an angel.” The statement is an impulse you instantly regret – an instinct to inflict pain upon this exposed and vulnerable piece of him like _he_ hurt you. Only, it wasn’t _this_ him.

“I _am_ an angel.” His voice is an indignant rasped whisper; his wounded affect accentuated by a dim of hurt hazing his eyes. It’s a conflicting sentiment – an angel who appreciates not being likened to his kin in mannerism and yet nonetheless fiercely identifies as one of them.

The contradiction piques your curiosity. You want, no, _need_ to know the honest reason a billion odd year old being hangs on to this specific sliver of his history. “You’re avoiding answering me,” you pry, “why do you keep it? _You_.”

His thick lashes shutter as he looks inward. He sighs, “Perhaps to remind me of the choice I made then.”

“What choice was that?”

“I chose the path of free will – to decide for myself what is right and not have destiny dictated to me by others.”

“And what did you decide is _right_?”

After a leaden pause, his eyes blink open and settle on you – they shine an impossibly vibrant blue to your mute color adjusted vision; you’re sure even the summer sky of your distant sweltering memories never shone so clear and endless. His reply is earnest – _honest_. “I’m still trying to determine the answer,” he confesses. It’s a deep-seated insecurity he has never told another soul – something he has been afraid to admit aloud, something he maybe didn’t fathom himself until you asked him _why_ and pried the answer through the regret-reinforced ramparts shielding his heart.

You sense the significance of the admission and in return gift him the one thing about yourself that in revelation might hold equally substantial meaning for him. “Y/N.”

“What?”

“My name,” you repeat, “it’s Y/N.” It’s an apology, too, for your earlier antics.

The angel’s pensive expression floods with a lightness of realization. He gets it – you’re proposing a fresh start. You’ve met now on a common ground; laying bare a patchwork of jagged scars and bloody wounds alike, you’ve uncovered two drifters, equally lost in their respective worlds searching for something good in the bad. Hoping – _still_ hoping it exists.

A subtle smile quirks his cheek. “My friends call me-”

“Cas!” Dean’s well-timed shout resounds from the kitchen threshold. He tilts his head politely toward you in toothy grinned greeting. “Hey sweetheart!” Wagging a finger between you and the angel, the grin broadens on his freckled face. “Well, isn’t this cozy. Nice civilized tea for two and not a meat cleaver in sight.” He winks a jewel of glinting green at Cas. “I told you apologies work wonders, didn’t I?”

Sam looms over Dean’s shoulder and furnishes you with a curt nod as he lumbers past his brother. “Glad to see you up and about. Cas was pretty worried there about whether or not you’d ever wake up at all. We all felt terrible having to leave you here alone – you find my notes?”

Dean mutters something unintelligible under his breath about _stupid freaking notes_ and wanders over to the fridge, visibly relieved to find it stocked with beer.

You eye the anomalous angel – _pretty worried_ , indeed.  A smile eases into the curves and creases of your mouth as he makes the formal introductions.

“Sam, Dean, this is Y/N.” His blues alight on your marveling gaze. “Y/N, these are the Winchesters.”


	6. Healing Touch

Five days. _Five_. Five monotonous windowless momentum-less days. You toss a bleary eyed glance at the bedside clock; the digital numbers, wavering mirage-like and bleeding into one another on account of the massive migraine-induced impairment of your visual acuity, flash from 3:53AM to 3:54AM. The tick of time is the perpetual proprietor in this place imparting you with any awareness of a forward direction. Everyone else pops in and out as they please, assuring you each time they reappear – only to hastily disappear – that the lockdown arrangement is temporary, for _your_ protection, and in the meantime you should concentrate on getting better; as if _better_ is a mislaid artifact you might find hidden away in a drawer somewhere for safekeeping if you spend enough time in obedient bondage to boredom. You punch the pillow cushioning your sleepless aching brain and, tucking the twist of a grimace contorting your mouth into the sound-dampening fluff of cotton fill, set free a frustrated groan.

_‘Not a prisoner,’_ Sam and Dean claimed. _‘Make yourself comfortable! Mi casa es su casa.’_ Or, _mi_ whatever the equivalent of _damned dark defunct art deco hellhole_ translates to Spanish.

“Comfortable, pshaw!” you gripe into the unsympathetic pillow and kick belligerently at the blanket shrouding your legs. Confinement – and you most definitely are a captive in this dungeon of a bunker; which, as it turns out, is replete with its very own super creepy _dungeon_ – and comfort are, in your opinion, mutually exclusive conditions.

“Did you have another nightmare?” The concerned query creeps through the crack of the door.

_Cas_ – well, at least captivity comes with a captivating view of this particular heavenly body. The angel said he’d be back tonight from an archangel search related errand; and here he is, _late_ , but nevertheless whispering at your door as promised.

“No, uh-” Squirming in the tangled pile of bedding to sit up and sort yourself into a semi-presentable state after arduous hours of tossing and turning, you mound the sheets around your crumpled pajama clad form. “I couldn’t sleep.” Reflexively smoothing mussed hair with a quick fuss of your fingers, you fight a brief brave battle with a snarl; subverted by an adjacent stubborn knot, you shove the whole defiant mat of locks behind your ear and exhale a defeated sigh. There’s no disguising the fact you’re a mess, inside and out, no matter how you look at it, or how _he_ does. You aren’t sure why you care; _if_ , you should care. It’s silly to care. “Come in,” you mutter.

Despite the conscious decision _not_ to care, you do; a dizzying buzz of gladness tingles in your soul and faintly flushes your skin at the prospect of company – his specific company. You can’t help but note that for all his bemoaning about having _more important matters_ to attend to, when he’s around he seems constantly on the lookout for the slightest reason to seek you out which is fifty shades of strange and also flattering; it’s been a long time since anyone, human or otherwise, treated you as though they sincerely care how you feel.

If someone told you a few days ago you’d be looking forward – eagerly even – to the companionship of an angel, especially an alternate universe duplicate of the one who took tortuous pleasure in torching your memories, you’d have choked laughing and questioned their sanity with your final gasp of breath. The hint of a nervous chuckle catches in your throat at the notion – perhaps you _should_ be questioning your saneness; _maybe_ , you consider as the door pushes inward, _we’re all mad here_. You concede it could also be the combining factors of sleep deprivation, forced solitude, and the intensifying drum solo pounding against the dome of your skull.

The stoical landscape of Cas’ countenance, half-lit in the hall light, pokes through the gap; his blues pierce into the darkness with angelic precision. “Is the headache worsening again?”

_Doleful Girl Draped in Beige Blanket –_ a portrait in pathetic; you tip your chin up and down in feeble confirmation of the accuracy of his deduction.

Any apathy flattening his affect diminishes in the contracting furrow of his brow. He crosses the room in five long strides and reaches out to you asking, “May I?”

Conditioned by your previous celestial captor to anticipate pain, not the proffered angelic equivalent of Aspirin, you involuntarily cower at the fingers outstretching toward your temples that accompany the question; shrinking into the sanctity of the sheets, eyelids clamping shut, you cannot subdue the violent shake quaking the shattered foundations of your nerves and sending quivering aftershocks coursing the sinew of your figure.

A wisp of an apologetic frown grooves his mouth; he withdraws his attempted touch, casts a critical glare at his upturned hands, and shoves the offending extremities in his pockets and out of sight for lack of anything better to do with them. His dejected gaze drops to the floor between his feet. Knowing he is capable of the same savagery that anguishes you and has forfeited a sacred oath to effect the same necessary but regretful act of information extraction to a devastating end on a human, he can’t help but feel a burden of guilt weigh heavily upon his shoulders for this other version of himself having hurt you thus. “You don’t trust me,” he acknowledges in the hush. He thinks it’s wise of you not to – _safer,_ based on his history of hurting the people he professes to care for, to carry caution against him.

“No, it’s not you. It’s-” Lashes lifting, releasing the fabric you didn’t realize you balled into your fists in bracing for agony, you blink up at him until his apprehensive aspect rises to rest on your timorous regard. “It’s . . . I don’t trust-” _You_. The words wither on your tongue; you’re certain they would make less sense uttered aloud. “Just go on, please. It helps.”

His fingers twitch within and emerge from their cloth incarceration. “Are you certain you’re okay with this . . . with _me_? The witch that Sam told you about, we expect her to arrive tomorrow to aid in our hunt for Gabriel. If you want to wait, perhaps she can help with a remedy-”

“No,” you interject, “no magic.” He’s already been in your head, beheld the damage, and the last thing you want is anyone else knowing how broken you are inside – how vulnerable. “I’m okay with you, really. It’s a reflex, that’s all.” Again closing your eyes, you inhale a slow calming breath, trying your best in tense anticipation of his touch to quiet your trembling. You remind yourself as a mantra of internal monologue that the handful of times in the preceding days he healed you you got instant relief; that in the aftermath of anxiety the residual torture of remembering lessened for a while – long enough to be worth overcoming the trepidation.

The tentative tap of his fingertips tease at your hairline. Peering down at you, he resists a tenderly burgeoning and selfish desire to cradle your cheeks in his palms and press his forehead to yours; he knows such intimacy is not required for healing, and yet he harbors a deep-seated, confounding given the circumstances of your connection, and more and more impossible to ignore impulse each time he’s near you to comfort you in _all_ the ways he knows how to – holy and _human_. He’s never experienced anything approaching this type of mesmeric pull with anyone else.

For now – summoning his God-given glory, puffing up his chest, corporeally imperceptible frayed wings unfurling to scrape the ceiling and walls and wrap in mollifying embrace around you – he represses the angelically dissonant yearning with an incorruptible upwelling of righteous intent. Light shimmering blues shut to guard against seeing the precise moment of your peaceful surrender to his grace that stuttered his vessel’s heart the first time he witnessed it; they squeeze securely tight to evade the rosy blush of a smile flowering on your lips as a deluge of divine energy wends a purifying path through the charred wasteland of your memory – reparative gentle caresses disperse like a stone tossed in water to create ripples of restoration in their wake.

He’s careful not to overwhelm, nor to intrude where mental barriers arise, however meek their fortifications, or to linger too long in any single reminiscence regardless of how enthralling. He’s so careful the self-control required engulfs his own senses in a heated echo of the fire that burned through your mind. He endures for as long as he can against the growing inferno; holds on meticulously healing memories one by one until his vessel recoils in a backdraft bordering at the brink of burnout.

A strained grunt passes his parted lips when his fingers finally falter to sever the bond between you. He staggers several steps backward before steadying himself and the lamp jarred by his elbow wobbling on the nightstand.

You sag sideways, head landing on the pillow; liberated from pain for now and insentient with exhaustion, you slip into easy slumber.

Moving again to the side of the bed, gathering the blanket up over your slack figure, Cas squints at your serenely sleep-softened expression. In the darkness, he admires with a compact smile the strength and beauty shining through your restful spirit – a survivor in a world slipping away from you. Before turning to leave, he yields to the urge to lightly brush an unruly strand of hair from your undisturbed brow with the back of a knuckle. His heart bounds, beating to bursting for a fleeting few seconds with gratitude at being able to help such an exquisite creature, rather than with guilt for harming you.


	7. Shine On

“Jackpot!”

The triumphant exclamation pierces the thick firmament of rot pungent air and echoes off the grime, blood, and funk-encrusted walls and smoke-stained vaulted ceiling of Hell’s abandoned throne room. With Asmodeus ended and the upper echelons of demon society scattered to who knows where fleeing in fear or squabbling to determine the next lucky leader of the lowest of low desirous to get in line for their inevitable permanent and statistically Winchester-precipitated demise, the sometime operational hub of all things dark side is _dead_.

From where he rummages through an overflowing, both literally and in level of abhorrence, human hide scroll-filled cabinet with zero success in finding what he and Sam seek – the tiniest trace of Gabriel’s grace to use in a location spell – Cas glances up toward the gymnastically animated features of the younger Winchester.

Sam’s beaming somersault of a smile – the brightest thing in the besmirched room – relays through non-verbal interpretive embellishment that he believes they’ve caught a much-needed break.

Cas tries to imagine you sporting a similarly unguarded smile in the shade of your world’s ruination. He wonders when the last time was you experienced such relieved purity of joy; he wonders, too, with a paroxysm of guilt, if you’ll ever be able to remember – no thanks to _him_ – that happy time. The angel hasn’t been successful, either, on this side trip in clearing you from his thoughts; ever since they disembarked from the bunker in the wee morning hours, he can’t help but wonder what you’re up to – if you’ve awoken and especially if you’re comfortable.

In a perplexing paradox to him, the harder he tries not to think about you, the more you seem to pervade his mind. The more he endeavors to concentrate on the gravity of the task at hand, the more he reminisces upon the soft temptation of your skin beneath the trace of his calloused fingers, and the more his mood is warmed by the resilient shine of a soul that for all you’ve endured should ebb dim but blazes beautiful to his perception. If he didn’t associate falling as a state far removed from goodness and grace, perhaps he’d recognize now that he’s _falling_ again; not just farther, but deeper into the unknown this time – _for_ _you_.

“Cas, did you hear me?” Sam questions, husky volume just shy of a shout; his forehead knots askance as he waits for the angel to join him to revel over the reveal of their auspicious prize.

Blinking to rein in his abstract roving, the angel tenses his shadowed jaw. Compelled by an irregular yet archetypally awkward impulse to make a show of shuffling around some of the scrolls to self-consciously cover his distraction, he replies in a gruff utterance, “I’ll be right there.” Leaving the mouth of the cupboard door yawning and squealing on the rusty hinges – yellowed scrolls stacked in a crooked toothed grin – he navigates the mess created by their search. Dodging sideways to avoid trampling on the decaying meat suit of a slain demon, he spares a look beyond the awaiting hunter to the vacant dust-layered throne; he half-expects to see Crowley seated there, head cocked and supported on bent knuckles, characteristic devious smirk plastered on his smug mien.

He attributes the sentiment of missing their conniving cohort that stirs in the center of his chest – actually lamenting the loss of a demon something too soppy for a seraph to consider – to being nothing more than the absence of Crowley’s potential usefulness to their current and constant world-saving cause. This cover-up, of course, is simply another of the little white lies Cas leads himself to believe because, like his intensifying attraction to you, it’s easier than acknowledging a truth too unfamiliar to process.

Securely clutching the metal box containing the anticipated tidbit of ethereal gold, Sam delicately probes and pushes aside the protective pleats of velvet fabric to pluck out the solitary glass vial lodged within. Holding it up and rolling it between his fingertips in the gloomy light, he distinguishes the faintest shimmering sliver of iridescence – essence of archangel – clinging to the curvature of the container. “You think it’s enough?” he asks the angel.

Cas squints at the vial; crevices of concern creping the corners of his eyes, he murmurs, “It has to be.”

“We should let Dean know.” Sam tucks the treasure back into the safety of the box; after fastening the lid, he thrusts it at Cas to guard and digs the cell phone out of his pocket. He dials, activating the speaker function.

“You find anything?” Dean’s riposte rasps, sleep-roughened, after one ring. Attention fixed to the bowl of breakfast cereal before him, he watches a raft of generic Cheerios surf around the surface of the milk; he’s thoroughly mystified in his stupor by the Os picking up nearby stragglers through some mysterious magnetic force as they float past.

“Yeah, we got it.” Sam breaks out in a smile that stretches to lighten his tone.

“Good,” Dean grunts and jams the base of his palm into one eye to blot out the weariness. “Now get home. Between the witch’s-” In the periphery of his unobstructed green globe, he sees Rowena sashay into the kitchen. He quickly assumes a congenial grin. “Between Rowena’s perfectly _reasonable_ requests and babysitting little miss _Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind_ , I need a break.”

“How is-” Cas’ worried query regarding you is cut off by the kerfuffle of Dean jabbing a misaimed finger multiple times at the screen to end the call.

“I don’t suppose you boys still have that tea pot lyin’ around here somewhere?” The witch slings a sensuous red-painted pout at Dean and procures an herb and spice packed pouch eerily resembling a hex bag from her pocketbook.

Dean smells the black licorice tang of anise in the dried mix from where he sits. His nose squirrels in aversion. “Try under the sink,” he suggests. Stuffing a spoonful of soggy Os into his mouth, he mumbles around the mush. “But that could be that other pot thing Sam uses to flush his sinuses with when his allergies act up.”

“Oh-” Rowena’s lashes ingratiatingly flutter. “Is he _allergic_ to civility, too? I understand in many cases the affliction can be _familial_.”

Dean’s rolling eyes land on your bedraggled form clomping down the kitchen stairs. “Good morning.” His spoon clinks with a sharp ting against the cereal bowl as he dips in for another mouthful.

The sound stabs straight through your cranium. “Is it?” You scowl at him; massaging your throbbing temples, you trudge over to the coffee maker, grab a mug, and yank out the carafe. It’s too lightweight to contain anything; you smack yourself in the ribs overcorrecting for the lack of liquid.

He quirks an eyebrow. “You mean, is it _good_? Well, it’s not bad. I guess it’d be better if someone hadn’t eaten the last of the bacon yesterday.”

Shoulders dropping in caffeine-deprived disappointment, your head lolls backward to send a breathy sigh of dissatisfaction shooting at the ceiling. “No,” you grumble, pivoting from the empty pot, “ _morning_. I meant, is it _morning_.”

“Woah, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” Dean snatches at and sips from a glass sloshing amber fluid that definitely isn’t coffee.

“Maybe I could find the _right_ side of the bed if I had a little sunlight to illuminate the way. Oh wait, _right_! No windows.” You bet what he has in his cup is a whole lot stronger than coffee in an agreeably mind-numbing fashion. “You got any more of that?” Gesturing at the whiskey, tongue wetting your upper lip, you drag your body over to the table and topple onto the bench.

Brow remaining raised, he selflessly slides what remains of his glass toward you.

The liquor singes your throat on the way down. You cough, but not from the burn.

“You know dear, sunshine’s overrated. Causes premature aging of the skin. _Wrinkles_. They don’t call witchcraft a dark art for no reason. How do you think we practitioners retain our youthful appearance?”

In your walking languor of antipathy for continued captivity, you completely missed the daintily framed fiery-fringed woman situated at the sink casually filling a tea pot.

She lifts a gracefully lithe limb and flexes her fingers at you in friendly greeting. “You must be Y/N. The boys told me _all_ about you.”

“And you must be Rowena. _Delighted_ , I’m sure.” You manage a brusque nod before swinging your gaze back to Dean. “Did _he_ tell you _all_ about how they’re holding me hostage?” Piling your elbows on the table, you reach across and grab at his wrist to try to wend away the clamorous spoon.

Instead, the cereal-laden utensil drops from his grip, splashes into the milk bath, and noisily rims the bowl.

Wincing, you immediately let go of him in favor of clawing at your aching head. The room goes briefly black.

When you emerge from darkness, Dean has materialized at your side; his fingers grasp your arms to keep you from listing backward and tumbling to the floor. “You okay?”

“No.” You squirm and moan in protest of the human shackles.

He mulishly rebuffs your actions by not letting go.

You’re too dizzy to do much more about it; you cease struggling.

Blasé, Rowena puts the pot on the stove and ignites the gas with a snap of her fingers.

“I’m not _okay_.” You peer up into Dean’s greens. There’s no pretense driving the desperation drooping your features into a frown. “I’m going crazy cooped up like this – I need to get outside, see the sky, breath fresh air – _move_.” Even if you _could_ recall the last time you stayed in one place for so long without agony for the effort, you couldn’t recall it.

“Sorry, _sunshine_ ,” he snarks, “but it’s not gonna happen right now.” Sensing you’re physically stable for the moment, he loosens his grip and steps back. “Sam just called, he got Gabe’s archangel residue that we needed for Rowena’s spell and I’m leaving in a few to get the rest of the ingredients.”

“I could go with you,” you plead. “I can help.”

“Not a good idea. Not very many shops out there sell what we need, and those that do tend to spook pretty easy. You have one of your headache-induced freak outs out there and it could jeopardize everything.” Extending a palm to prohibit your following, he dares another few steps nearer to the door and departure.

You lurch to your feet to follow anyhow. “I won’t. Cas healed me again last night. Ask him. I’m good. It’s been days since I totally blacked out.”

“What do you call what just happened?” He waves a hand in the direction of the deserted bench. “It’s a whole hell of a lot louder out there in the wide world than in here.”

“I’ll stay in the car.” You beg, “Dean, please.”

Rowena sidles up to you and lays a palm lightly to your shoulder. She gifts the elder Winchester a commiserative gleaming wink. “Come now, sweetie. Chin up.” Sliding her hand across your back, she pats it soothingly and playfully taps the round flesh of your chin. “These Winchesters are nothin’ if not stubborn when they’ve made their mind up about something. Why don’t I make you a nice hot cuppa? Have a lovely little chat . . . just us _girls_.”

Eyes glistening with unshed tears of frustration, you shift your glance to the woman proposing, at the very least, a diversion from the monotony.

Dean gives the witch a grateful nod and throws you a proverbial bone before retreating into the hall. “Listen, Sam and Cas will be back in a bit. Maybe you can get one of them to arrange a field trip.”

You’ve heard it before – a tease of hope to appease you whose promised path leads to nowhere but more excuses.

“Ta-ta and good riddance!” Rowena heckles the vacated threshold on your behalf. “Now where were we?” she mutters.

The tea pot whistles; the shrill note punctures your skull and a vortex of blistering pain rushes into the opening. Quite unexpectedly, a certain angel’s name poises in prayerful plea on your tongue as you drop shrieking to your knees. There’s no time to ponder the implications or significance of this development before consciousness fails you.


	8. Fly Me to the Moon

The furious bellow of a tractor trailer horn blares somewhere ahead in a highway scene shrouded in a morning mist of rain burning off the blacktop under the blazing kiss of the rising sun. Undisturbed by the distant noisy intrusion into the otherwise quiet atmosphere of the car, Sam’s fingers remain near motionless where they drape the steering wheel; the gracefully long digits occasionally flex and contract, making minute undulant adjustments to compensate for the winding curves of the road. Hazel eyes peacefully pensive, brow untroubled, the hunter stares ahead into the lifting fog, intent on the drive home.

Sat in the passenger seat, Cas contemplates the green and white mile markers sailing by in a blur along the roadside; according to his angelic reckoning – a feat of navigational honing very much akin to that of the regrettably extinct species of North American homing pigeon – the markers are off by a mere fraction of a thousandth of a mile probably owing to the result of a surveyor’s error, malfunctioning equipment, or the United States obstinate failure to adopt the metric system of measurement like the rest of the freaking developed world. The _freaking_ , of course, is Dean’s invaluable contribution to the angel’s internal flow of meditative monologue. 

It’s a fact of technicality the angel keeps to himself; although, within the limited circle of humans he calls friends – no, _family_ – he considers Sam most likely to harbor the humor necessary to appreciate the trivial observation. Dean’s mode would be mockery. Then, of course, there’s the great unknown of _you_ ; you, who persistently dominates his thoughts now no matter where they bend. In gleaning fragmented knowledge of your past and present with each healing pass of his grace and the too brief spans of time spent in your company, he’s beginning to understand the battered but brave survivor better – well enough to guess that, if not the detail of the erroneous measurement itself, you might find his absurd notation of it nonetheless amusing. The possibility of arousing some small joy within you excites an ephemeral smile on his lips.

The anticipatory buzz of excitement is fleeting.

_“Cas!”_ Your pained appeal slams into his celestial awareness with no loss of momentum in traversing the gulf of distance between you.

His wings jolt to the ready, an irrepressible instinct, outstretching and straining against the restrictions of their impairment upon perceiving the desperation of your plea. Reaching their broad black span upward in a single swift beat, ensnared inescapably in the confines of their hidden heavenly dimension, the appendages ripple and rustle in dissent to their damage; silken feathers tattered, plumes stripped to the bare barbs and deeply scarred in sections, they reflexively recollect but are rendered incapable of their once swift capacity for flight.

Lightning searing across and seizing his vessel’s shoulders, Cas pitches forward with a ragged groan and braces his palms against the dashboard as he struggles to subdue the rising winged revolt taking place in response to your summoning. He’s hopelessly immobilized from instantaneous arrival at your side, yet every atom of his celestial being tears at his vessel, beckoning to answer your prayer.

“What?!” Startled by the sudden commotion – the worst of which remains unseen by him – Sam swerves sharply, steering to the gravel edge of the road. “What is it?” He taps a tentative hand to Cas’ arm – every muscle of the limb beneath the layers of fabric tenses and trembles with all modicum of control the angel is able to rally. Although he doesn’t fully fathom the extent of it, Sam recognizes the symptoms of stress disturbing his friend. “Angels again?”

“No,” Cas forces the reply through a gritted jaw. “It’s Y/N. She’s hurting . . . praying for help . . . for _me_. Just keep-” Regaining his composure through sheer command of celestial will, fingers slipping on the vinyl dash as the initial sting of pain passes, he slumps into the scooped embrace of the seat. “Just keep driving.”

Sam’s eyes rove to the gauges of the car. He hasn’t expressed it aloud, but he worries about the effect you’re having on Cas here at the precipice of the latest looming apocalypse. He admits it’s good to see his friend backing down from do-or-die _Terminator_ -esque soldier mode; but you, your coarseness toward him, abrasiveness _in general_ , the angel surely feels a debt of responsibility learning there’s an evil version of himself traipsing around in the other universe who all but destroyed your mind. He thinks it’s a lot even for a stoical seraph to absorb.

Sam can’t imagine the conflict Cas feels, mainly because processing emotions verbally – or _at all_ – isn’t exactly the angel’s strong suit. He knows well that Cas’ greatest fault and his best quality are one and the same – a habitual need to make things right no matter the personal cost. He wonders if the burden of caring for you circles back to making amends with Dean for Donatello – a chance to correct a mistake. “Is she okay? You know, if you want, we can talk about what’s going on.”

The angel knows you’re not okay; that, although he appreciates the open offer, talking will do nothing to correct this; and that, from his present distance-impaired location, he can do frustratingly little to help you. Grace uselessly surging, he may as well be human. Dismissing Sam’s concern, head sagging to his shoulder, blues squinting, he grumbles, “Sam, we’re not moving.”

“Right, got it.” Sam stows his concern, throws the clutch in gear, and swings the car back onto the highway.

A final spasm twitches the angel’s wings as they fold and refold fitfully together. He thinks – slanting his gaze at the console clock now and then, excruciating minutes of separation stretching into hours that should pass inconsequentiality for an ageless being existing since the dawn of time but instead drag – that perhaps, like the specious mile markers, time itself on this endless sun-drenched stretch of highway is faulty.

Inclined against the door jamb of the kitchen, fretting over her gleaming red manicure, Rowena pauses mid-chew of her pinky nail when she perceives a rush of footsteps resounding in the hall. She taps the chipped nail thoughtfully on her tooth – the redeemed witch didn’t sign up to babysit; she’s also wise enough to comprehend how it would bode for her if something terrible happened on her watch whether or not she was still present in the bunker to be blamed when the Winchesters and their angel arrived home to find you in a deeply disturbed state. _Caring_ , she’s beginning to discover, comes with its own unique set of complications.

As Cas rounds the corner in purposeful, gloriously angelic, and full trench coat billowing stride toward the kitchen, Rowena bodily flings herself at him with an exaggerated squawk. “There’s our high and mighty _hero_! Took your time getting here, didn’t you? The poor girl’s been in there sufferin’ for hours. _Hours_! And where were you? Off gallivanting with a _Winchester_ , of course!”

Cas ignores both the ridicule and the whip-tongued woman wielding it. He brushes past her explicatory flailing form as she animatedly complains about the circumstances of being left alone with you completely ignorant of your infirmity and alternately drones on about an episode with a screeching tea pot.

The angel finds you hunkered in a corner – wedged between the wall and a shelf – hugging your knees, face buried in your bent arms. Approaching cautiously, he crouches before you and, remembering your adverse reflex to his unexpected touch, resists the desire to lay a palm comfortingly to the roundness of your shoulders rising with a shallow inhalation. “Y/N?”

Hair sweeping in clumps across your red-rimmed eyes, you peer out at him through puffy lids from within the cocoon of crossed limbs. The reality is, your head stopped aching hours ago. You staged a kitchen coup because precisely when your headache peaked and subsided, your heart assumed hurting where your head left off under the barraged return of your memories. Remembering feels a whole lot like losing everything and everyone you ever loved all over again to an apocalypse. Sniffling against a long since dried well of tears, defaulting to your signature defensive defiance in affront to this new and improved onslaught of internal agony, you muster a bit of spirited pluck for the especially concerned looking seraph’s sake to prove to him you’re fine. “You’re _late_.”

Several lines fissuring his anxiously wrought features iron themselves out in a wash of relief. Spunk is _good_ ; it’s expected – it’s limitless spring in your soul is something he admires. “I’m sorry it took so long, but I can’t-” His blues – swiftly subduing into seas of sadness and shame – glaze and veer in avoidance to the assortment of dusty disused cooking utensils on the bottom shelf beside you. Husky tone sinking to a raw whisper, he addresses what seems to be a sensitive subject. “Well, you’d call it flying. I can’t do that, not anymore.” Regard bending back to you to gauge your reaction to his admission of angelic debilitation, he adds gravely, “In all likelihood, not ever again.”

“That’s funny.” You realize the unintended offence as soon as the words lob off your tongue.  You meant to say: ‘ _Hey, that’s an interesting coincidence, cause the other you can’t fly either.’_

Cadence clipped, his expression hardens. “I fail to see the humor in the incapacitation of my wings-”

“No, I didn’t mean-” You grab at his sleeve, apologetic. “It’s not funny, _ha ha_. I meant that it’s strange. _Strange_ , because the other Castiel – he can’t fly either. The angels, when we wouldn’t talk, they summoned him and he came in a truck – an armored truck – by himself. An angel travelling by land, it was . . . _weird_.” Grimacing, it occurs to you that you’ve managed to deride Cas’ feathery debility and imply he’s strange and weird in the same breath. Apparently, your ability to translate thoughts into lucid unoffending speech is short-circuiting. You try again, because the idea of band-aiding the situation with more syllables sounds super sound inside your noggin. “Not that you’re weird, you-”

“You remember all of that?” he interrupts what was likely to be another unintentional seraphim slight. There’s a suggestion of forgiveness in the subtlest of smiles skirting his mouth.

“I’m remembering a lot of things,” you reply, watching the smile shift upward to crease the corners of his eyes at the news. Self-conscious when your gaze catches his, your focus falls from the glimmer of gladness flooding his face to your fingers continuing to clutch at the fabric of his coat sleeve. You should let go. You don’t want to let go. It’s _strange_ and _weird_ to still be holding on, but he hasn’t made any motion of protest. Here, and _there_ , Cas – the first person you saw in this world, or Castiel – the last face you saw in yours, the angel is a constant. It’s why you prayed to him, _this_ him in a tea pot induced panic when your miserable memories came crashing back to your consciousness all at once; he’s your touchstone in the good.

If he notices the epic struggle of self-discovery taking place in the fluctuating pressure of your fingertips attached to his coat sleeve, he doesn’t mention it. “You’re remembering – that’s good.”

“Is it? Most all of it – it’s bad. _Really_ bad.” You know he’s right – in theory it’s _good_. In practice it cinches your fist tighter and gives you greater reason to hold on to him.

“It’s good because it means you’re recovering,” he states – at least one of you has an accurate read on deciphering your thoughts. “How’s your head?”

Biting your lower lip, you tease, “Still attached.”

Chin tilting, gaze narrowing, he chides, “ _Y/N_.”

You shrug. “Better . . . I guess. The noise sensitivity resolved the hundredth or so time witchy Nanny McPhee ingratiatingly asked me if she could do anything else – ‘Anythin’ at all, _dear_!’ – that didn’t involve boiling water in brass pots.”

A skeptical _humph_ vibrates in his throat. He casts you a doubtful stare to punctuate his pessimism over your lack of certainty.

“Okay, better, definitely better,” you concede and posit his next thought before he can mutter it. “And before you ask if I’m tired, the only _tired_ I am is of being stuck in this damn bunker.”

“Can you stand?” Reaching his free hand across the sleeve you have securely embedded in your grasp, he glides the rough pads of his fingers gently along the ticklish inner surface of your thumb and upturned wrist; when you don’t flinch away from him, he allows his light caress to linger there longer, heat sparking on your skin.

“I-I think so,” you stutter, attention torn between the simple question and the balminess of his flesh where it grazes yours.

“Would you like to go for a walk?” His tender touch trails to your elbow; encircling your arm, he helps you rise to your feet. He pivots and sidesteps to ensure you don’t feel cornered without escape upon standing.

You wobble on your disused legs, using the unsteadiness as an excuse to lean into him for support. “A walk? You mean, _outside_?”

He peers down at you, aspect and affect afflicted with an utter sense of soberness as square as his jawline at this proximity. “No, a walk on the _moon_ ,” he retorts.

Puffing an airy burst of laughter, a grin broadens your cheeks. “Did you just crack a joke?”

He nods, the shine of a smile again brightening his serious countenance. “Dean mentioned recently that I should try to lighten up. Was that a suitable occasion to do so?”

“Yes. And yes to the walk!” Skipping several steps backward, socked heels slipping on the tile floor, your palm reluctantly parts from the anchoring stability of his chest as you dash for the door to change out of pajamas and into the clothing you previously deemed stupid – considering you had nowhere to wear it – which was generously purloined for you by Sam and Dean from their mother’s closet. “Don’t go anywhere, I’ll be right back!” You pause at the threshold and flash him an enthusiastic parting grin before scampering down the hall.

Exhaling a contented sigh, Cas’ lashes shutter to envision the delight of your grin etched into his memory. He thinks, based on the warmth radiating from within his vessel’s chest, that your joy, too, is everlastingly emblazoned on his heart. The experience of bringing you that bit of happiness, it’s so much more meaningful than the bounds of angelic imagination permitted him to conceive; and, the angel who wants nothing for himself wants more of _this_ exhilarating sensation.


	9. The Fable of the Fawns

Key revolved, the gear of the locking mechanism clicks; parallel bolts flanking the cast iron barrier on all sides disengage sequentially in a chorus of ear-splitting metallic screeches each more cacophonous than the previous. Castiel casts a scolding scowl at the unnecessarily raucous Men of Letters apparatus as he yanks free and pockets the key – unfortunately, no delicate way exists to assuage the decades-old device into opening without the ostentatious clamor. Before you, he never regarded the din with any resentment; not even whilst breeching the egress with a very hungover Winchester, or two, in tow. He glances backward to judge the effect of the high-pitched noise on your nerves.

In the darkly lit landing – feeble glow of lamplight diffusing from a bare bulb around the corner – he sees you, seeming to have taken no particular notice of the boorish sound, picking idly at the grooves of concrete block forming the wall. With no outward sign of distress straining your eager aspect as you wait for the promised freedom of a walk to reveal itself, he pulls bodily against the handle of the heavy door.

Reinforced steel hinges squeal long and low. Door heaved inwardly agape, a torrent of mugginess invades the constricted space at the top of the stairs; swirling, it envelopes you in a humid embrace. The invisible grip compresses you just snugly enough to make expanding your lungs in the dense flood of air a chore, but not so tight as to be altogether uncomfortable. You inhale a deep drink of the Kansas summer ether; the surrounding surge of heat sinks into your pores, creating a sheen of sweat that simmers on your skin.

It’s sweltering outside, and yet you freeze; in the shadows of the bunker inner sanctum, you stand transfixed by the contrast of shade and blinding sunshine delineating the gateway to the outside world. Compared to the dull grays and browns of an apocalyptic aftermath – sunbaked skies subdued by nuclear fallout and the soot of humanity’s demise clouding the ozone – everything out there shines impossibly bright to your dim-adjusted sight; the washed out pale blue of the cloudless late afternoon sky peeking over the treetops, the glinting underbellies of lime cottonwood leaves flapping lazily in the oppressive breeze, and the concerned glimmer of the overdressed angel’s blues gleam brighter than anything else when he realizes, several steadfast steps ahead of you, that you’re no longer crowding behind in impatient pursuit of freedom.

“Y/N?” His brow creases into the fleshy equivalent of question mark. “Is something wrong?”

Your eyes alternately alight on him – the spectacle of his coat adding to the glisten of sweat damping your forehead – and dart past him in wonderment, focusing squint swept out into the narrow slice of vibrancy visible beyond.

When you fail to answer, or _move_ , he retraces his steps and extends a hand toward you; palm upturned, awash in sunlight, he beckons you out of the gloom with an encouraging nod, reassuring, “It’s safe.”

Reaching out without hesitation to accept his invitation, you make the conscious decision to trust him because – aside from bearing a physical resemblance and the same name as another angel in a place drastically different from this one – in his fundamental kindness, he has given you no reason not to trust him. You fit your fingers over his to scale the final step separating you from both him and the liberty you desperately missed.

The door swings shut behind you, clatter clanging in reverse.

Without letting go of his grip, allowing him to lead you some yards out from the shaded cement alcove of the bunker’s entrance, you peer around; the surrounds unfold significantly more unimpressive than on first scorching blush – decrepit factory fascia, orange decay of rust, fractured glass, an unkempt crumbling road, scattered patches of overgrown weeds with sparse tufts of grass clinging to survival, _more_ rust, all of it ringed by further industrial deterioration into the distance on one side, and a gathering of gangly trees verging an expanse of gravel on the other. Except for the differentiating saturation of colors, it looks a lot like _home_.

Chewing the inside of your cheek, you mumble, “It’s-”

“Not what you expected?” he presupposes your disillusioned summation.

If you’re not mistaken, amusement over your preliminary disappointment glitters in his irises; or, perhaps those are simply golden flecks of sunlight reflecting back at you. You incline your chin affirmatively, adding an apt descriptor, “ _Anticlimactic_. I thought you said the apocalypse never happened here.”

He shrugs, appreciating as his shoulders lift and roll that the weight of your grasp continues to linger within his. “It’s not a particularly scenic area, but-” Slanting his eyes downward to your loosely conjoined hands, calloused thumb caressing a circle over your knuckles in unthinking reflex, he cases his fingers more securely around yours and gives them heartening squeeze. “Regardless of initial rough impressions, I’ve found over time that the place possesses certain hidden charms.” Acutely aware of the moist melt of your skin pressed to his, unsure from what strange rushing stream the impulse to strengthen his grip sprang, if the protraction of contact is appropriate, and suddenly insecure about the origins and audacity of the action, he second guesses the implicit intimacy of the act of holding hands – _your_ hand specifically – and hastily disentangles his grasp to gesture instead to the tree line as if _it_ , and not _you_ , is the most interesting thing in the immediate vicinity. “There’s, um, a trail through there. The land is part of a nature preserve. The walk is quite peaceful.”

Missing the somatic connection to him, you flex your forsaken fingers and contract them into a fist around the vacant air. You’re sure there’s a faint flush of pink tinting his unshaven jaw as he avoids your gaze; your stomach flutters at the notion you caused it. Musing upon when getting closer to an angel became more exciting to you than finally getting out of that God-forsaken bunker, a smile fixes firmly on your features. “Peaceful sounds perfect.” You jab at him playfully with your otherwise unoccupied fist and aim in a swift dust-saturated march over the drought beseeched land for the indicated gap in the woods. “Let’s go!”

Black boots and navy trousers coated in a haze of dust, he jogs to catch up to your quick pace.

Side by side, near enough to inadvertently – or, not so inadvertently – brush swaying arms as you walk, you roam the meandering tamped trails in quietude save for the rustle of shoes on leaf litter and the grating crunch of gravel beneath soles. With anyone else, the absence of steady conversation would be awkward; with the angel, it’s comfortable in a manner simultaneously ordinary and _extra_ ordinary; and, as he suggested, eminently peaceful.

Every so often he prods at your wrist – the feathery touch is barely there in pressure, but nonetheless electrifies your already sultry skin with an upwelling of warmth in its wake – to bring to your attention in the tree canopy dappled light a perching red-breasted robin serenading the forest with a melodically noted song imploring the relief of rain showers to break the heat here, or a family of raccoons napping in preparation for a cooler nighttime of nocturnal foraging there.

At the edge of a meadow, seed-bedecked heads of sinewy grasses and bloom-laden wildflowers bowing in the sluggish breeze – flower heads bent in adulation beneath slender orange rays of the setting sun sneaking through the encircling copse of trunks – he pauses, murmurs under his breath a directive more vibration than vocalized verb for you to, “ _Wait_ ,” and stares with a knowing gleam illuminating his expression into the lush overgrowth.

You peer over his shoulder, straining on tip-toes to see the mystery object evidently clear to him but indiscernible to you given the limits of human perception. “What is it?” you whisper, breath ghosting his ear.

Angling sideways, he holds a finger up to the pout of his mouth to shush you. He procures an apple from his pocket; the unblemished red skin of the fruit snaps and fizzes under the precise arcing cut of his celestial blade as he slices it into equal halves. Lip curling into a half-smile, he motions for you to look again toward the meadow.

If only as a means to ascertain the source of his stunning smile, you obey his request. In the undulant sea of green and speckled blossoms stretching out before you, the finely boned features of one, then another white-spotted fawn rise above the verdant waves. Velvety brown ears prick and pivot in your direction; wet pink noses flare to sniff at the tempting sweet scent wafting in the air.

Without a word, merely a flit of his thickly lashed blues between your fingers fidgeting with the hem of your shirt and the cautiously approaching deer, the angel indicates you should cup your hands. Into each upturned palm, he places a halved piece of the apple. Settling a gentle caress to the convex of your back, he urges you to shift in front of him.

Tiny hooves plod a careful path across the terrain until long necks are near enough to for muzzles with silken lips to nibble at the proffered treat; tongues tickle at the sticky residue of juice on your skin.

You smother the sound of laughter threatening to tremble your body.

As the fawns munch the crisp apple and nuzzle their noses into your splayed fingers, snuffling for more, Cas scratches one of them fondly behind the ear.

The creatures seem to regard him without fear. Of you, they are a bit warier; ears twitch just out of touch of your fingertips when you overturn empty hands to try to steal a stroke of tawny fur.

The sharp snap of a distant twig cracks the aura of silence and ends your efforts.

White tails flipping in instant alert, the fawns snort, spin, and bolt into the underbrush.

“What happened?” You wistfully frown watching their hurried departure. The greenery swishes and stills as though they were never there.

“A poacher killed their mother,” Cas murmurs. “They’re usually very mistrustful of strangers, but they liked you.”

“I think they liked the apple more.”

“Perhaps,” he concedes. “Or, perhaps not. You’re the only human with whom they’ve let down their guard.”

“You’re just saying that.” You diffidently glance down at and toe the ground.

“Perhaps,” he repeats, “or, perhaps _you_ are special. Is that so hard to believe?”

Dropping the shield of self-doubt to accept the angel’s spontaneous compliment, your frown shifts into a flattered smile. He’s seen you at worst, suffered your worst behavior, and still he’s here. You don’t know what it means to you exactly, but the rise of warmth blushing the swell of your smile-stretched cheeks tells you it means _something_. “I suppose it’s not, at least not when it comes from you,” you reply. Giddy at his suggestion, you spiral on a heel to slink deeper into the dusk-dim and now uninhabited meadow.

Content with your concession, he follows in your wandering footsteps.

Veil of night drawing overhead – sky purpling as the first stars twinkle to life – a fading glint of gold on a mirror of water at the far edge of the field catches your interest. “What’s that?” you ask, already striding through the waist high brush toward the spot before the angel can provide an answer.


	10. Friction Effect

It’s not the ocean – although, the cold water flows refreshing and free around flesh salted by heat and kissed to a polished luster by the sunny exertion of an afternoon amble; nor does the torpid humidity of the Kansas dusk hanging overhead in the guise of a hazy purple, wispy grey-streaked, star-pricked blanket hold the same guileless promise as that long ago unblemished blue sky of a summer day at the beach. There’s something profounder than innocence prevailing here – a charged potential building between atmospheric particles signaling the sort of lightning strike that heralds a heaven-sent bone-drenching downpour of relief after an unrelenting drought. The electrifying thrill pertains to someone you ceased hoping existed as your world burned, funneling you and every other isolated soul surviving in it toward a fiery finale.

When you break upward in an effervescent breathless burst from the pond’s cooling liquid embrace, airy liberated laughter sputtering through rivulets wetting your smiling mien, the unexpected renewal of hope waits for you on the shoreline. With eyes encompassing the eternal blue of a sky unfurling into the depths of forever – even at this distance, the luminosity contained therein shining brilliant in defiance of the enveloping darkness – hope dons the charmingly cut contours of a man shrouded in a trench coat. No, not a man – an _angel_ ; though, that’s not how you define him. You understand now an angel is _what_ he is, not _who_. This distinction in your reasoning, too, arises entirely unforeseen given an accumulation of harrowing experiences involving the mercilessness of his kind up to and including the singular sadism directed at you by his counterpart in your world; the disparity makes all the difference in your heart’s racing reaction to the image of him standing sentinel.

Appearing equally startled under the circumstances, the crinkle of confusion contorting his brow as he peers between you and the collected mass of crumpled clothing cradled in his arms reveals nothing sinister. He’s not like them; and certainly, nothing like the other _him_ – he’s unlike anyone you’ve ever known. It’s not fear exciting your pulse at the sight of him in all his, at present anyway, categorically un-angelic glory – it’s unbounded affection; it’s a yearning for more.

Stone still at the pebbled margin of the rainwater reservoir used in times past for irrigation, in these latter years by Dean as an ersatz fishing hole, in humming perpetuity as a mosquito den of iniquity, and most recently by you as a pool, Castiel stares out, struck speechless, to where you swim in what he personally deems an oversized manmade _puddle_ ; your grinning mug bobs above the water amid broadening ripples.

Accounting for the number and intimate nature of the discarded garments he gathered in his advance toward the sound of gleeful splashing – the pleasant scent and residual warmth of you clinging to the fabric clutched in his fingers – he suspects you’ve removed _all_ of your attire to inhibit the effects of friction hindering your impromptu plunge. Judging by the decorum defying response of his vessel to the awareness of your bared flesh concealed beneath the inky surface, it occurs to him you’re not alone in harboring corporal concerns involving the concept of friction – your _less_ begets his desire for _more_.

_More_ than purely empirical mimickery of a pornographic pizza man. _More_ than the biological satisfaction of momentarily weak submission to a reaper’s lustful lures when overwhelmed by the physically sensational circumstances of the human condition’s reflexive need for connection in a lonely world. This full-fledged and yet totally confounding want of more with you _,_ and what more means, restrains him from making a move toward attaining it. He nurses serious doubts whatever blundering version of more he has to offer you is less than enough to content a soul too special to possibly reciprocate fond feelings for the undeserving likes of a fallen angel.

Interrupting his inner lambasting, limbs wildly whirling to wave whilst staying afloat, you shout, “Come on, get in! The water’s fine!”

“I’ll, uh, watch from here,” he stammers. Self-conscious of the immediate influence of your proposal on further inciting the involuntary flush afflicting his physical form, never more aware than in this moment of the rough rub and restriction of layers of material covering almost every inch of his hide, gulping against the growing constriction of the shirt collar and tie cinched around his throat, he adds in a tone firmer in conviction than necessary, “Watch over your clothes I mean.” He exhales a flustered sigh at the dubious sound of the excuse to his own ears.

You glide deeper into the water in an eddy of giggles.

Ever the pragmatist, his glance drops to your castoff clothes as his thoughts drift to wondering what you’ll wear when you emerge from your drenching dip. Fingering the thin white cotton of your t-shirt, he divines it will surely turn translucent when soaked through and stick to the supple curves of your body – a development that will do nothing to quell other rapidly escalating developments transpiring in his wantonly dissenting vessel. There’s little time for him to dwell on planning a defense against the eventuality of the reversal of your submersion; in the periphery of his vision, he witnesses you rise in a cascade of clear water, bare feet and resplendently wet figure proceeding to pick a graceful path toward him over the rounded rocks.

The heat of his furtive gape steeps into your already saturated skin. His visibly quivering confidence as he tries and fails to redirect his regard captivates you. You’d have thought an angel would be unmoved by nudity. After all, he beheld the creation of humankind, observed Adam and Eve before the venom of modesty tainted the blood rushing through their veins – a shyness sustained still in their descendants; a shyness you increasingly remember in yourself as you close the distance to him. Your exhibition of boldness wavers in the demure crossing of your arms over your breast and sex.

His discomfiture dissipates upon seeing your insecurity. Stooping to place your clothes in a neat pile, he shrugs off his coat, strides forward, and wraps it hurriedly around your shoulders. Knowing full well there is no one save a smattering of lightning bugs engrossed in their own luminescent conversation, he scans the stretch of shore for unwelcome onlookers as he snugs the sagging material taut to shield against exposure and dry you.

“Thank you.” Licking at several stray droplets of water wending over your upper lip, you avoid his gaze by looking straight up at the mushrooming clouds refracting ghostly golden glimmers of distant lightning. Booming echoes muffled through the trees, thunder rumbles somewhere far off. The air, absent the departed breeze of day and stagnant with calm ahead of the oncoming storm, swells oppressively thicker between you. “Is it always like this?” you ask.

Your inquiry, of course, refers to the sultry weather; the angel’s dazed intellect, however, distracts metaphorically to acknowledge in his seemingly endless, and multiply resurrected existence, that _no_ , it’s never been _like this_ for him with anyone else – angel, human, or otherwise. No one before you succeeded in awakening this ache of irrepressible want within him – a longing and desire to not only care for you and protect you, but to ensure your happiness by pleasing you in every way conceivable. It’s a feeling so foreign to celestial custom he has no idea where, in a tidal wave of sentiments ranging from a humble declaration of devotion to an impiously reverent show of passion, to begin.

“Cas?” In the silence, you peer into his pensive features.

His concentration resides somewhere between here and the center of the universe as he endeavors to determine what to do next; _if_ he has the right, considering what you’ve been through because of _him_ , to do anything at all without knowing for certain it’s also what you want. He resolves his attention on your searching eyes, his focus falters to the soft temptation of your questioningly parted lips.

The entranced flicker of his blues does not escape your notice; your tongue darts to dampen your lips in enticement. The subtle strain etched in the lines of his face as if he’s holding back prompts you to prod, “What were you thinking about just now . . . when you got quiet?” What you want to know is why he hasn’t laid siege to your mouth when all signs point to a kiss.

He has several specific answers: The distance of separation he must cross rounded up to the nearest hundredth of a millimeter in order to caress the pink petals of your lips with his pouting ones to feel the swift rise of life surging thereon beneath the delicate tissue. The inopportuneness of the approaching storm, which he calculates will douse you both in rain in 2 minutes and 8 seconds, well before you could make it back to the shelter of the bunker. The radiant warmth of your flesh beneath his fingers where they encircle your upper arms helping to secure his coat from slipping off your frame. How, although the themes of free will and choice continually preoccupy his existence, actually choosing never gets easier. How the brightening cloudbursts of lighting reflected in the beads of water amassed on your brow pale in comparison to the vibrancy of beauty originating within your soul. And whether, like the pearlescent raised scar crowning the bend of your knee that he knew existed based on a memory laid bare to him while healing you days ago and then literally as you rose out of the water tonight, an injury that grieved you for weeks but with which you associate the happy memory of learning to peddle your bike at age 6 without training wheels, you could one day rewrite the painful scars of what _he_ did to you with similar happiness.

He shares none of this rich and poignant introspection with you; instead, formality of his demeanor stiffening, Adams apple undulating beneath the scruff prickling his neck to swallow his conflict of indecisiveness, he defaults in his uncertainty to stating an entirely innocuous and impersonal fact to deflect the pressure mounting in his heart. “Are you aware that the human body is made up of, on average, approximately 60% water? I’ve always thought it’s why humans feel so at ease submerging themselves in a treacherous element powerful enough to have helped hew the very planet.”

“Oh.” You utter the ambiguous, vaguely disappointed, vowel sound aloud – perhaps you read his unspoken cues wrong. “That’s, uh . . . interesting.”

He realizes although he doesn’t know what the right thing to do is, _this_ was definitely the wrong thing to say.

In inclement intervention of the awkwardness, thunder cracks and growls overhead. A single fat cold raindrop splatters your cheek. Innumerable of its drizzling kin follow as the clouds unburden themselves of moisture a solid half minute before the angel anticipated. Bending to pick up your water-logged clothes before they wash away in the deluge, your heel slips.

Atropos, sister of fate, being no friend of the angel’s, he’s a dozen or so seconds too late to alter his choice. Routed, he snakes an arm around your waist for support and steers you toward the canopied cover of the tree line.


	11. Under Your Spell

Retracing his footsteps from the task of securing the door following a soggy return to the bunker and your subsequent sprint to your bedroom in search of a dry clothes, Castiel’s rain sodden boot leaves the last metal stair and lands on the floor with a slosh at almost the same instant Dean materializes in the hall door traveling the well-worn route from kitchen to library.

The hunter carries two condensation glazed amber bottles of beer, neither of which is intended for the angel. 

Cas’ fingers pause in their anemic struggle to loosen the slippery blue knot of his silken tie. He eyes the alcohol; the thought passes fleeting that he could use a beer, or _thousand_. From the wind-mussed mat of dark brown locks slicked to his forehead down to the pruned-skin toes shoved into squishy socks, his demeanor drips defeat over the washed-out chance to kiss you and the continued existential battle waging within between his sentimental heart and reason-ruled mind regarding as to where, should your relationship develop further despite his ineptitude in processing and directing his developing emotion toward you, this newfound and deepening desire fits into his angelic existence and your otherworldly one.

Staring at his friend in the saturation of silence as though he’s also been caught in some seraphim subterfuge for having gone against Dean’s strongly worded decree that you not be allowed outside the controlled confines of bunker-dom, he thinks perhaps Dean should have warned, too, that you not be permitted to breach the boundaries of his heart; it’s precisely the sort of distraction none of them need right now – not that the angel necessarily abides by anything Dean dictates.

“Dean, you’re back.” Defaulting to the observable in the absence of anything more concrete to say about the maelstrom of confusion vexing his mind, the gravelly greyness of his tone emulates the storm roiling outside.

“How was your wa-” Dean’s gaze pops upward, widening upon perceiving the soaked state of the seraph. “-what the hell happened?”

Suit stuck to his skin, pallor oddly pale, a puddle gathers around Cas’ ankles as he tries to decide if and how to articulate to Dean the tale of a perfect afternoon punctuated by a near kiss preempted by an inner tempest of hesitation deluged by a literal tempest with an ending ultimately steeped in regret and the never-ending cycle of life’s uncertainty. It’s the sort of benign blow so consistent throughout the angel’s undertakings that it could be considered his trademark. Preferring to nurse his woes in private, dreading Dean will add insult to injury, he says nothing.

Waiting for an answer, and unlike the droplets of water sliding off the glass bottles to splash the concrete at his feet a darker shade of grey, the Winchester’s patience runs dry. “Cas, why are you wet?” he reiterates his question with specificity.

“It’s raining.” Cas shrugs his slouched trench coat-less shoulders as he mutters the specific, albeit overall vague in actual terms of _why_ , reason for his dampness. He avoids looking directly at Dean.

“Ya think?” Dean gestures the neck of one of the bottles at the atypically disrobed angel. Astute to angelic body language, he doesn’t miss the glancing guilt. “Not to state the obvious, but isn’t this the exact scenario trench coats are made for? Where’s yours?”

Cas misreads the waved refreshment as an offer to take it. Slogging nearer, he reaches out to pluck the drink from Dean’s grip; twisting off the top, he downs the contents in a single long glug. Wiping wetted lips with a wetter sleeve, he professes, “I gave it to Y/N to dry off after she went swimming.” As the bunker houses no pool, which implies your swim occurred significantly out of bounds of Dean’s directive, his eyes dart sidelong to assess his friend’s reaction to the revelation of defiance.

There’s a rise of anger in the guise of vocal gruffness, but not toward the anticipated detail of your outing. Running his free hand through his hair in irritation, he huffs, “Don’t tell me she took a bath in my fishing hole.”

“Dude,” Sam interrupts. His cross-armed figure leans against the library threshold – parched, impatient, inquisitive, or all of the above. A smirk stretches his cheeks. “Why do you insist on calling it a fishing hole when you’ve never caught a single fish?” The arch of his brow wordlessly inquires as to the location of the beer his brother promised.

Grateful for an intermediary and the redirection, Cas contributes, “It would be a miracle if you did catch a fish considering there aren’t any inhabiting your so-called fishing hole.”

Surrounded and outnumbered, Dean’s lip curls in defense. Unapologetic for the angelically absconded beer, opening up the one remaining in his possession and laying claim to the rim with spit, he grumbles around a swig, “The art of fishing has nothing to do with whether you catch anything. I wouldn’t expect either of you to understand the complex nature of-”

“Here we go again.” Sighing, Sam uncrosses his arms and turns to wander into the library. “Heard it before, still not interested.”

Dean and Cas trail after him – the human casts the angel an appalled glare as his soles gurgle and squelch with every step.

Cas senses Dean’s aghast glower. Endeavoring to keep the conversation from detouring to you, he engages in the act of small talk. “Did you retrieve the rest of the ingredients?”

“Yeah, everything except an angel feather. Turns out they’re in scarce supply these days, but I figured you could-” He clasps Cas’ shoulder roughly and apes tugging a feather. “-you know.”

“Of course.” Cas suppresses the wince that threatens to contort his features with a mask of impassiveness. Yanking the rare intact plume from the scarred span of his wings is a bit like pulling a fingernail out by the cuticle; and yet, it’s nothing he doesn’t believe he deserves for his multitude of transgressions. In his heart, he judges this small sacrifice to be the least he can do for what he’s done. “Anything to help,” he adds, mostly to convince himself.

Dean’s grin is as genuine as Cas’ passivity is disingenuous. “Great, Rowena’s waiting-”

“On the wings, so to speak.” Rowena winks, simpers, and rises with a slow stretch from the leather lounge in the alcove. Yawning, she snaps shut a book she wasn’t actually reading and balances the slim volume on the arm of the chair. “Hello again, tweetie pie.”

Cas bobs his chin politely in acknowledgement. He notes mutely that the red-haired witch’s compulsive proclivity for using nicknames must be hereditary based on her son’s penchant for doing the same.

Her pout over the lack of a more rousing response to her flirtatious greeting morphs into one of contrived concern. Heavily mascaraed lashes fluttering, somehow intuiting the precise topic Cas wants to avoid, she extends her delicate dancer’s frame to full height on her heels to peer over their shoulders. “And where’s that poor disturbed child scuttled off to?”

All eyes alight on the angel for the answer.

Cas’ mouth presses into a pallid line under the burden of expectation for an explanation. “After we returned from the walk, she, uh, she wanted to warm up in the shower.”

“Oh?” Rowena’s crimson mouth quirks in avidity of amusement. Her gold-dusted eyes dart to Sam and Dean to ensure she holds their attention. “Because it looked to me like things were heating up nicely until someone stumbled over their cold feet.”

“Wait, what?” Dean sputters and chokes on a poorly timed sip of beer.

Sam smiles – the insinuation of budding romance explaining an abstract aloofness verging on daydreaming afflicting the seraph of late.

“You,” Dean states in disbelief, “and Y/N? Since when?”

“We’re not-” Sidestepping further elaboration, the self-inflicted torture of feather removal being preferable to Dean’s teasing, he veers for his quarters, muttering, “I’ll return with the feather.”

Target out of sight, Dean directs his interrogation at the witch. “Were you spying on them?”

She narrows her gaze. “It’s called _scrying_ , and there’s little else to do for diversion in this dank dungeon of yours.”

“What else are you sticking your nose into?” Dean scoffs.

A soft smile of satisfaction slithers across her aspect. “Let’s just say the seraph’s not the only one with a stimulating secret or two around here. Do our dear young Samuel and haloed hero know about that nondescript box you keep hidden in your closet vent?” Pirouetting, she sinks again into the chair and recommences her non-perusal of the book.

Forehead furrowed mid-brow, Sam’s mouth shapes to utter an astonished _‘What box?’_

Before he can speak, Dean holds up a palm. “It’s nothing.”

“ _Nothing_ indeed,” Rowena titters, licks a finger, and flips the page.

Suit coat draped over his arm, tie slung undone around his neck, white dress shirt flapping agape as he pulls the ends of the damp garment from the tuck of his pants, Castiel peers up from unbuckling his belt as he enters his bedroom surprised to see you seated at the desk.

Freshly showered, snug in cozy pajamas, smelling sweetly of lavender soap, you sit with your eyes fixed not on the computer perched in your lap, but upon the strip of tanned and toned torso visible to you. The intricately beautiful black lettering of a tattoo peeks from beneath the fabric covering the left side of his stomach.

The angel halts in the doorway, spine stiffened under your scrutiny, belt half unlooped from his trousers and hanging in his hand as if he doesn’t know whether to come or go.

Realizing the impudence of your sustained stare, cheeks hot, you gawk with sudden interest at the laptop and punch at a few random keys. “Hey, uh, I was looking for you,” you murmur. “Thought I’d give this Netflix thing another go, but I can’t seem to find the second season of _Firefly_.”

“The space western?” Relaxing, letting the leather slip forgotten from his fingertips, Cas steps into the room. He slings his coat and tie across the corner of the dresser to dry and moves nearer your side to squint at the screen.

His increased proximity and decreased dress does very little to diminish the hotness flushing your skin. “Yeah, that’s the one.”

Frowning at being the bearer of bad news, he reclines against the edge of the desk and shakes his head sadly. “I’m afraid that series was cancelled before the second season. I don’t suggest bringing the topic up with Dean, it’s an extremely touchy subject.”

“You’re kidding!” Sulking, you shut the screen, spin in the seat, and slide the computer back on the surface of the desk. You can’t help but steal another glimpse of the tattoo inked across his abs; this close, you recognize the strange symbols as Enochian warding – he’s an angel warded against other angels.

His blues narrow askance. “Why would I joke about that?”

“I guess you wouldn’t, I just thought-” Stumbling over your words, the significance of his tattoo – the possibilities of what occasioned the necessity of it – enthralls you. “Things really are different here, aren’t they? I may come from a world wrecked by an apocalypse, but at least we had six glorious seasons of Firefly.”

“I suppose, apocalypse aside, things have the potential to be quite different here. Hopefully some, too, for the better.”

Glancing upward, you meet his steady gaze. You perceive in the softened sapphire sheen of his eyes a glint of hope that he may be one of those positive differences.

“So-” You shift, nervously looking away to chew your lip; remembering your misreading of the kiss that _wasn’t_ by the pond, you think perhaps your interpretation of this hope is only a mirror of yours and not a reflection of his own sentiment. “Dean’s back?”

“Yes.” He sighs subtly having lost your gentle regard and denies the desire to hook your chin with a finger to again lift up your disarming eyes to him.

You imagine – a pout creeping to downturn the creases of your mouth – you’ll be left alone in the bunker, _again_. The temper tamed until now climbs your throat. “Then I suppose you’ll be leaving soon to go searching for Gabriel?” Your tone scrapes the air and his ears more abrasively than intended.

He straightens at your harshness, hesitates, then moves toward the dresser. “We need one more ingredient to complete the spell. But then-”

“What is it?” You rise to your feet to follow him, trying not to appear too eager or desperate not to be abandoned. “Can I help?”

He rests his palms on the dresser and peers at you through the hazed glass of the rimless utilitarian rectangular looking glass mounted above it. “It’s not something you-”

“I can help, Cas.” You touch a hand lightly to his shoulder. “I feel so useless locked up in here. Please, let me help you with this.”

The flesh of his vessel prickles pleasantly under the thrum of your fingertips. He wanted to say in the sordid scope of history encompassing the collusions between heaven and humanity, he cannot recall a single soul granted permission to harvest a plume from an angel’s wings, let alone _see_ their corporeal shape beyond shadow. It’s a side of him he reasons you don’t need to be subjected to – a glimpse of his tarnished true form. Proof of his failures. He blinks heavily, focus falling to the sanded twist of a knot darkening the smooth finish of the dresser’s woodgrain – an imperfection, but a flaw that makes the piece of furniture all the more beautiful. Proof of survival. Perhaps, he thinks, there’s a chance you might view him this way. “It’s a feather we need.” The low bass whisper raises the hair on the back of your neck. “One of _mine_.”

You squeeze your fingers firmer into the muscular arch of his shoulder. “Seems simple enough.”

“Simple, yes, but I’ve never-” He shakes his head. “No mortal has seen any more than a shadow of my wings. Revealing them, it’s an . . . a very intimate act.”

“So, kind of like you seeing me naked.”

“Yes, kind of like that,” he agrees, adding, without processing the intimation of attraction to you in what he says, “only you’re lovely, and they’re . . . _not what they used to be_.”

“You don’t have to hide from me.” Flipping your hand, you brush the backs of your knuckles down the length of his arm to weave your fingers through the spaces between his where they splay on the dresser; constricting your grip, you urge him into the light with sincere reassurance like he urged you to step into the sun today after so long in the dark. You coil your fingers until no gaps remain and his eyes lock on yours in the mirror.

“Close your eyes,” he rasps the breathy command.

“Cas-”

He covers your interlaced hands with his unconstrained palm and, sliding them from the dresser, spins to face you. “Unless you wish to be permanently blinded when the dimension where they’re cloistered phases into this one, I suggest you shut your eyes _now_.”

Your eyelids squeeze tight. You inhale and hold a lungful of the charged air building between you. A blaze of light burns bright against your shuttered lashes. A rush of soothing warmth washes sun-like over your skin. The atmosphere quivers to life with the sound of feverish rustling. His fingers fidget – fitful – in your grasp, then break limply loose.

“We need an unspoiled feather to give the spell the best chance of success.” He utters coolly – his voice seems somehow distant to you. No, _detached_ – surely a measure of protection against the judgement he awaits when your eyes open.

Your eyes remain clamped. You worry you were too bold asking this of him; or, too manipulative in likening the revelation of an angel’s wings to the exposure of your body – an unremarkable human form at that, with a structure battered and stitched together by scars, inside and out, he chivalrously called lovely. _Lovely_. Your heart flutters – the compliment races in a flurry from right atrium to ventricle, circulating hot to sear the held breath in your lungs, then speeding with renewed fervor left atrium to ventricle to oxygenate your limbs in a weakening tizzy of excitement.

“Y/N, it will be easier for both of us if you open your eyes now.”

Lashes lifting, looking upward, you exhale an enraptured gasp and stumble backward; he catches you by the waist.

Imposing jet black wings branch above you; their span curves, cramped, into the corners of the room. In sections, the feathers erupt sparse from scar-coarsened sinew, in others, the quills are frayed and blunted almost to bone, and yet the overall effect astonishes. “Unspoiled, right.” Reduced by awe to echoing, you repeat his instruction.

He dips his head once, chin to chest, and sinks to one knee.

Your attention roves the broad span and finds a prospective plume jutting out near the juncture of his shoulder blades. “And when I find one, how do I remove it?”

His fingers stay at your waist, twisting at the hem of the fabric there as if bracing himself. “You pull. _Hard_.”

“Won’t that hurt?” You isolate and clutch the bony base of the intact quill in your fist and flatten your palm to his bowed shoulders for leverage.

“Yes,” he hisses between his teeth at your tentative tug.

“Sorry. Sorry! Are you okay?” You flinch at the raw power behind the curtailed flap tensing the insulted appendage.

“You have to pull _harder_ ,” he growls. Burrowing his forehead into your stomach, he clutches at your sides to bolster his support.

Readjusting the angle of your grip, you waver. “I don’t think I can do it.”

“I’ll be fi-”

You wrench at the feather as hard as you’re able.

“Fuck.” The respired humid heat of his agonized expletive and succession of pained pants as he struggles not to completely collapse at your feet steams through the cotton barrier of your shirt to moisten the hollow of your navel housed beneath – the graze of his fingers sinking into soft flesh will surely leave bruises.

The angelically absurd exclamation of obscenity and the carnally redolent contact aches as a surge of ardor flourishing at the apex of your thighs. Catching his breath, he leans backward to gaze up at you with watery blues. The spellbinding scent of your unmistakable arousal floods his senses.

The hard-wrung feather floats from your fingers to the floor, fingers favoring instead to card through the angel’s still damp halo of chestnut locks. He doesn’t appear so formidable with his scaffold of scarred wings sprawled behind the shrunken figure of his vessel – doesn’t seem so unattainable sat suppliant on his knees before you, pinpoints of lamplight sparkling in the black pools of dilating pupils. Cupping his cheek in your palm, daubing at a stray tear tenderly with the pad of your thumb, you bend to ghost the gentlest of kisses to the corner of his mouth.


	12. A Funny Thing Happened on the Road to Amarillo

Everything happened so _fast_.

Flinching from the scald of water running over fingers ruddy with heat, you jab shakily at the faucet and reach up to swipe at the film of soap and steam clouding the mirror above the sink. Stopped at a diner less than a stone’s throw from Amarillo – a kitschy Tex-Mex joint named _The Cool Cactus_ which, when you last laid eyes on it in another world fleeing from the city with your family, stood as an ironically lobular cactus-like heap of rubble with protruding steal rebar for thorns – you understand the ruse has already gone too far. It should have ended at the bunker before it began; Cas would’ve understood then, but now . . . it’s evolved into something you can’t undo without hurting him.

Leaning nearer the smeared glass surface, you peer at the dull reflection therein; the squared edge of porcelain bites painfully at your hips as you angle closer to search the hazy recesses of your face for evidence of the lie. With the heaviness weighing on your soul, it shocks you to find absolute blankness of expression staring back; no visible confession is scrolled in the fine lines etched thereon – no shapes of unspoken words lodge at the angular corners of your mouth waiting for life’s breath to give any indication something is amiss. 

Given what’s at stake, the passive calm of your façade – a mask refined over many years of fighting hardship and finagling survival – shocks you. You wonder when you became this person; if, perhaps, you were always so selfish and this is the reason you survived. Time and again, that fickle bitch fate provided you alone another path forward. _Alone_. Only now, for the first time in a long time, you’re not alone – love of an angel, of all the unlikely beings it could beat out a song for, drums your heart. You dab the pink swell of your trembling lips; the delicate flesh blanches under the pressure. You close your eyes in feeble shield against the waterworks threatening to erupt along with the blissful memory of his kiss.

_Knelt at your feet, forgotten feather strewn aside, tears of pain streaming his unshaven cheeks, the spark of something worshipful kindling in a gaze imploring mercy, his vulnerability pulls you in; as soon as the warmth of your lips caress his – the tender kiss barely a brush of breath – any hesitation Cas harbors concerning the revelation of his own emotion dissipates. Latent love unbridled by your advance, he abandons controlled celestial resolve in favor of the reactive desire instinctually driving his vessel._

_Dispelling all space separating you, he suspends, it seems, time itself; for a breathless interlude the energy of his grace envelopes you beyond the purely physical in a corporeally transcendent blaze of devotion so luminous it would appear to anyone outside the intimate vantage point that the whole of creation revolves around your magnetically tangled figures – surely no star burns brighter in the universe. Within this light burst of entwined eternity there exists only the wet heat of his mouth ravishing yours, the pulse of your flesh rising beneath his scrabbling fingers, and the cushioned crush of your spine against the wall of wings encasing you unyieldingly in his embrace._

In your heart you know you need to tell him; he needs to hear it from _you_. Perhaps then . . . you twist the flats of your palms to daub weepy eyes. It’s not your lie, and yet you’re not exactly an unwitting accomplice. Silence makes you complicit; continued silence means you deserve whatever happens next. But part of you wanted _this_ – wants it _still_ even at the real risk of losing a love you never imagined. Crackle of a sob catching in your throat, your bleary focus falls to the mustard yellow plastic plaque mounted above the tap reminding employees to wash their hands before returning to work. The black letters blend as tears cascade over your lashes to splash the sink without a sound. Damn temptation. Damn weakness. Damn the witch.

_Cas groans low at the interrupting thud of knuckles rapping on the door._

_The sonorous gravel rub of the sound courses through your body to curl your toes._

_“You okay in there?” Dean demands through the wood. He jiggles the locked knob._

_Releasing the kiss-bruised tract of flesh above your clavicle with a soft suck, the angel nuzzles and scrapes the scruff of his chin along the exposed column of your throat._

_You whimper partly in protest over the ill-timed interruption and partly in response to the sting of pleasure delighting sensitive skin._

_The hunter knocks again. “Come on Cas. Open up. How long does it take to pull one out? I figure two, three minutes tops given your lack of feathery action these days.”_

_Giggling, you grab a fistful of Cas’ hair to swivel his lust-blown concentration from where he scatters tiny ticklish kisses into the hollow of your neck to your love-drunk grinning countenance. “I don’t think he’s planning on leaving without that feather,” you simper._

_“No,” Cas grumbles and steals a quick peck of pliant lips when you loosen your grip on his locks. “I suppose he’s not.” Sighing in resignation, conflict creasing his crestfallen mouth, he rolls his half-clothed body to one side of the bed. “And he’s right not to – finding Gabriel takes precedence over all else. Even-”_

_“Pleasure?” You don’t hide your disappointed frown. Sitting up, you fumble for and shrug on the evidently too hastily discarded sweatshirt and smooth your fingers through disheveled hair._

_Observing your fidgeting form, it occurs to the angel, in times of war, the regret infused in those certain regrettable actions applies not only to the ones actually undertaken, but also to the ones denied. He reaches for your hand and presses his fingers into your palm to reassure you the adjournment of his affection isn’t on permanent hiatus._

_You squeeze his hand in return to let him know you expect him to make up for it at a sooner, rather than later, date; first a rainstorm, then a Winchester – the third time is sure to be the charm. “Do you boys ever get to have any fun?”_

_“Historically speaking?” Mollified by your discreet acceptance of the delay despite his dissenting vessel visibly begging more tangible terms of satisfaction, Cas swings his legs off the mattress and unsuccessfully tries to tame the bulge of his trousers into submission by buckling his belt. He peers back over his shoulder before standing, sheer solemnity shrouds his expression. “No.”_

_“Are you-” Shadow shifting beneath the door, Dean’s voice cracks, “is Y/N in there?”_

_Blues rolling in response to the astonishment lacing the tone of Dean’s deduction, Cas circles to the end of the bed and lifts his damp dress shirt from where it drapes over the corner; he scowls at the limp garment and shakes it out._

_“I got this.” You leap to the floor, retrieve the feather, and move to the door. Hand poised over the knob, you spin to flash a suggestive smile at the seraph and wink. “Might as well finish at least one thing I started tonight, eh?” You fling wide the door._

_For an awkward few seconds, Dean’s arms undulate like tentacles at your sudden appearance until he decides shoving them in his pockets is the appropriate course of action. “You two, uh, too busy to open the door or something?”_

_“Or something,” your smile resets into a sardonic half-grin._

_Amusement dimpling his mien, Dean totters sideways on one foot to peer beyond you into the dim room where his friend struggles to shove a soggy suit coat over his shoulders._

_Clearing your throat, you ask, “You looking for this?” You hold up the coal black-colored plume and rotate the translucent barb between your fingertips as it glints, tip to base, a metallic silvery-grey hue in the hall light._

_Dean’s greens divert back to you. He hums in approval. “That kinky winged bastard.”_

_When he attempts to pluck the shimmering feather from your grasp, you clutch it to your heart and scoldingly narrow your gaze. “I’ll deliver it myself, thanks. Where is she?”_

Blaming Rowena is childish. You had a choice; and across the anxiety-filled miles stretching between the bunker and Texas – Cas’ adorable attempts at conversation, the sweet small strokes of his fingers at your knee entreating you to take his hand, the abiding concern for your comfort, happiness, hunger, thirst, tiredness, current state of your bladder, and inquiries as to the source of your uncharacteristic quietude – you realize you chose _wrong_. Sniffling sharply, the rough intake of salty tears scratches and sears your sinuses. Swallowing, they stir sickeningly with the bile in your stomach.

_“Ah child, good evening.” Rowena’s heavy lashes flit upward in elegant profile to eye you and the feather with equal levels of disinterest. “I see you’ve got the final ingredient for our little spell. Must’ve spent some time cavorting with that dashing angel then.”_

_Regard roving over the assemblage of odd ingredients and an oversized ancient tome sprawled on the surface of the table filling the expanse between you and the witch, you shrug in matched overt indifference. “Yes, I guess I must’ve.”_

_Rising, she sashays in a fluid choreography of motion around the table to extend her upturned palm toward you. Pursing her crimson mouth, she says knowingly, “Feeling a wee more relaxed, are we?” Eggplant purple painted nails gleam as she waves her fingers beseechingly._

_You drop the feather into the lily white palm. “What’s it to you?”_

_She spins, curt. “Simply a bit of friendly banter, dear. If it’s more to your fancy, you may scurry off and let the boys know I’m nearly ready.” A bird-like cluck passes her lips suggesting that’s that and she tosses the feather in a wide-brimmed wooden bowl to resume consulting the book._

_Wondering about the feather’s role in the mix, you dawdle._

_Sensing your continued curious presence in spite of a coolness of conduct on both sides, she marks her place in the text with a fine-boned finger and looks up. Suspicions confirmed of your stubborn intent to linger as you prod at the gnarled remnants of a mandrake root, she inhales a bothered breath. “So . . . where’re you from?”_

_You steady a wobbling vial of unidentified putrid-smelling olive-brown liquid knocked by your sleeve before glancing up, stupefied by the question. “I-I thought they told you – I’m from the other world.”_

_Gold-dusted lids dart upward to summon patience and nicety from the thin air for the blundering human that is you. She sighs, “Yes, yes, of course you are, but the world’s a big place, isn’t it? Surely you must be from somewhere a sight smaller than a whole planet.”_

_“Amarillo,” you mumble, not a particular fan of the mundanity of such small talk._

_The mishap of her own motherhood rooted within the redemption on her mind, she meditates aloud, “And your family’s there? Your mum?”_

_“I imagine what’s left of them is there, if the angel’s left anything at all after the bombing.” You should have been with them. “You know, I never even got to say-” you choke up. It’s a fluke you weren’t with them; you got left behind in a medical camp – back when those beacons of hope still existed – with a taped up injured ankle while your family backtracked home after the initial chaos of the apocalypse to see what remained of your lives there and to determine if it was safe. None of you had any way of knowing about the bomb – a last ditch nuclear effort by some unknown person with their finger on a powerful button to destroy angels en masse where they were rumored to be gathered in Houston planning the next massacre of humankind. Turns out the angels weren’t the ones responsible for that particular massacre of millions._

_Blenching, Rowena tucks her chin to her chest. A sincerely somber note lilts her voice, “Ach, that’s terrible.”_

_Hiding your horror from her at the freshened memory, you flee the room without another word to fetch the brothers and Cas._

_Lashes fluttering, a contemplative trickle of a smile twitches the witch’s cheek in your absence. “Truly, truly terrible to never have the chance to say goodbye. To have resolution.” Wistful, she swipes a tendril of red hair behind her ear and redoubles her examination of the book._

Shock, fear, and the part of you holding out hope of seeing the family you thought you lost forever kept you quiet when Rowena grandiosely proclaimed upon completion of the spell’s incantation and smoky climax that Gabriel was in one of two locations. “ _Central City, Colorado and wait . . . possibly, yes, possibly Amarillo, Texas,”_ she cooed the name of the second city to everyone’s collective surprise, no one more stunned than you. Smiling, she reserved a special twinkle of her eye for you indicating the rest was in your hands. Wink _wink_.

Sam questioned the precision of a spell so, well, _imprecise_. Dean declared it to be the best lead in weeks regardless. The brothers could’ve just as easily laid claim to Amarillo, but they didn’t; Dean called dibs on Colorado after Sam’s knotted brow wordlessly warned his brother this was an archangel hunt, _not_ an episode of _Gunsmoke_. Cas advocated you join him for the road trip to Amarillo if you felt up to it and as long as you agreed to stay out of the fracas when it came to confronting Gabriel. Dazedly, you agreed. The pieces of the puzzle fitted together so perfectly without your meddling it seemed like destiny, and not the angel you deceived by doing nothing, drove you here.

A tray of dishes clatters to the tile outside the bathroom door. Jeers. Laughter. The tinny clinking of cracked glass and clay being swept into a metal dustpan. You push open the door slowly and peek toward the seating area. The angel waits for you in a booth along the UV-tinted row of front windows. Hands folded on the faux-granite tabletop, his gaze swerves outside.

“I said _excuse me_!” A waitress in a retro cactus-green dress crowds past you in a hurry.

“Sorry,” you mumble. When your eyes alight again on the angel, he’s peering at you with the sparkle of a smile subverting his stoic visage. You dislodge yourself from the door and stride toward him, weakly endeavoring to emulate his delight. He stands – _stands!_ – trench-coated frame oozing chivalrous charm when you approach the booth and slide in the seat across; this heavenly knight in black-winged armor shtick he has going on for your benefit isn’t making what you need to say any easier. “Cas, there’s something I-”

“One double stack of blueberry flapjacks, extra whipped cream, extra blueberries for the lady, and one cup of coffee, black, for you, sir,” the server interrupts, plopping a plate of scrumptious pancakes under your nose. “Can I get you anything else?”

Cas shakes his head. “No, thank you.”

“Enjoy!” The server smiles and drifts away to check on another customer.

“I hope you don’t mind – I took the liberty of ordering for you. Dean said women find the gesture romantic. I know it’s only a diner, but-” Cas reaches for your hand across the table, stumbling over his words when you yank it out of reach.

“It’s perfect, thank you.” You state mechanically, sinking further down into your seat to commence poking at the contents of the plate with a fork – sugary blue syrup swirls into the cloudy foam of cream and all you can think about are the pair of gentle blues fixed on you, caring but confused, and how that shade of kindness will change to anger once he knows the truth.

He might be oblivious to some social cues, but your avoidance and disquiet are too obvious to mistake or ignore. He defaults to the assumption he’s at fault. “Did I do something wrong?”

“You didn’t do anything. I-” you falter. _You_ didn’t do anything either, which is the problem. “I-”

His cell phone rings; sitting up straighter, he rifles through his pockets to locate the device.

Pain circles and compresses your temples. A wave of dizziness washes over you and tunnels your vision.

“It’s Dean.” Squinting and tapping at the screen, he sends the call to voicemail. “I’ll call him back.” Gaze returning to you, he rushes to his feet to move next to you. “What’s wrong, Y/N?”

“My head.” You push aside the plate, overwhelmed by nausea and the situation – stress, exhaustion, dehydration, low blood-sugar, it’s a toxic combination.

He flattens a fretful calloused palm to your forehead. “You said the headaches had stopped.”

You swat him away and put a distance of several more inches between you by moving flush to the window. “They did – _this_ , it’s just a regular headache, okay? I get them too . . . just need a couple of Aspirin, not an angel.” You fear if he touches you, he’ll sense the unsaid. You’re not wrong.

He studies you for a moment as you practically cower in the corner of the booth. “You’re afraid.” Unease hardens his aspect. “There’s something you wanted to say to me . . . before the waitress came, before Dean called.” He motions to lay his hand on your leg; on final approach he decides better of it. “Y/N, you don’t have to be afraid. Not of _me_.”


	13. Lost & Found

A low slung orange orb in the late afternoon sky, the sun sinks behind a run-down two-story adobe and brick façade motel obstinately rising skyward to block the view in an otherwise flat and monotonously colorless expanse of desert near the highway outside Amarillo. Streaming through the breezeway of the stairs separating the opposite wings of the building, a solitary jet of errant light kisses the dirt cloud kicked up in the wake of the brown jalopy motoring through the unpaved lot.

Pulling into a parking space defined by indistinct bands of faded white stone, roughly jarring the clutch into stationary submission, Castiel yanks the key from the ignition where it dangles and leans forward to peer through the grimy windshield. Elbows propped on the steering wheel, he stares out at the darkened window of the room where he left you to recuperate while he combed the city, leaving no stone of ill-repute unturned, for sign of his trickster brother.

He sits in solitude – waiting for _what_ , he isn’t certain of – every so often the television screen in the second floor unit above yours flares and illuminates the curtains and the angel’s blues in a hazy wash of violet; disconcerting dry feminine laughter, coarsened by decades of smoking, emanates through the uninsulated walls with enough intensity to overpower the steady hum and intermittent rattle of the dripping air conditioner wedged in the window.

Aside from the lengthy lapse of hours and lowered latitude of sunlight, all appears exactly as he left it. Given the drawn curtains and absence of light, he guesses you remain curled up in bed; it’s just as well, you slept very little on the journey here, and what slumber you sunk into was fitful at best. Inhaling deep of the coolly charged draft of air wending through the cracked window carrying with it the scent of a storm building on the horizon – eerie green glimmer of distant lightning flickering on burgeoning clouds in the rear view mirror if he cared to look – he slouches back and reaches blindly sideways into the passenger seat.

The drug store plastic bag containing a bottle of Aspirin bought to treat your headache rustles under his searching fingertips. He finds, too, the bundle of roses with their fragrant velvety red petals and long thorny stems neatly wrapped in heart-flecked cellophane. He still doesn’t know what happened at the diner, what you wanted to say to him, or why you suddenly seemed to regress into fearing him once more; you evaded every concerned enquiry and rebuffed his gentle reassurances.

Only the sense of urgency toward finding the missing archangel, duty to Dean’s explicit instruction before departing the bunker that you not unnecessarily divert him from what needed to be done, and your adamant insistence he _go_ after you checked in to this dilapidated roadside dump – where the sleazy wax-mustachioed proprietor took one gander at Cas’ business ready attire and pegged you as pay-by-the-hour clientele – compelled him to leave you alone when it was plain your claims of being _fine_ were false. All day long, embarking on one dead end lead after another in the hunt for Gabriel, he remained preoccupied with the mysterious development distressing you and the uneasiness troubling his own mind over the matter – it’s not the amorous kind of distraction Dean was worried about, but so much for _not_ being distracted.

Carefully, the angel cradles the bouquet; although he fails to appreciate the sentimental appeal of castrated flora, the flowers, he hopes, will brighten your mood and maybe make you more amenable to disclosing what’s bothering you. Tucking the peace offering securely in the crook of his arm, snatching the bag containing the pills, he nudges a shoulder into the stubbornly sticky truck door to shove it open; it assents to the action with a plaintive squeal and slams shut again with equally loud lament. Soles scuffing gravel, parched earth powders the black leather of his boots as he shuffles to the door. Twisting the key in the lock, he hesitates to spin the door handle as ever-present doubt surfaces to momentarily paralyze his resolve.

Superficially covering the spillover of internal strife, he pauses to intently study the varying shades of dingy beige visible in the layers of peeling paint coating the door. It occurs to him perhaps, eager to expand upon the extent of your companionship, he was selfish in insisting you join him – the trip too much too soon for your friable nerves; or perhaps, out here in the great wide world filled with its myriad of _other_ prospects, freed from the relative isolation of the bunker, your interest in him precipitously waned when presented with an assortment of _better_ choices.

In his skewed analysis of the situation, the evidence of your edginess in his presence and increasing adversity to even the smallest of affectionate advances significantly substantiates the latter possibility as the reason for his having fallen out of your favor. The rancorous ring of his phone interrupts the inwardly directed recrimination. Fumbling to balance the roses and bag, he turns the knob and pushes the door open a crack to free a hand to fish the noisy device from his pocket. Swiping the screen, he raises it to his ear. “Hello, Dean.”

“Good news, we found Gabriel, helped him tie up a few _godly_ loose ends, and he agreed to help us.” The tone of gladness in the declaration relays Dean’s cautiously optimistic triumphant grin. “We’re headed home now.”

“That _is_ good news,” Cas concurs with muted disinterest, restating the fact simply so Dean knows he’s on the line. His blue focus drifts beyond the blackness of the threshold into the room beyond and the mass of rumpled sheets topping an empty bed. “Y/N?”

“Hey buddy, speaking of Y/N, listen up.”

Although the phone lingers pressed against the angel’s ear, none of what Dean says afterward registers as he enters the vacated room, tosses the flowers – romanticism forgotten in alarm – haphazardly at a side table, and switches on the light he doesn’t actually need to know you aren’t there; your absence, though, seems somehow more concrete to him in the harsh glow of the bare bulb hanging overhead. He’s relieved to discern no obvious signs of struggle. He’s less relieved to note your overnight bag missing from the chair where you tossed it upon arrival. His roving gaze glosses over then returns to a sharp-edged contrast of clean white on discolored carpet.

Unaware of the unfolding drama, Dean’s voice drops to utter the concession, “Gabe’s low on batteries, claims he needs a few days to recharge, so why don’t you and Y/N take your _sweet_ time getting back … _if you know what I mean_.” The suggestive wink is implied in the statement; Dean knows his friend has been off his game since his resurrection from the Empty – dogged determination hardened by a disconnect from the empathetic heart that has always distinguished him from other angels. For all his asserting you to be a distraction, the hunter recognizes the sensitivity and care Cas feels toward you and he reckons the diversion is well-deserved. “Cas, you there?” Dean asks the silence. Smirk edging his mouth when there comes no reply, he disconnects the call and chuckles knowingly to himself about over eager angels.

Eyes locked on the stark rectangle of white, Cas crosses the room and, stooping, picks up a mislaid business card for a local taxi cab company.


	14. You Can't Go Home Again

Yellow fender of the cab long departed from view down the iron lamp-lit dusk stretch of street, you stand across from _home_ where the driver dropped you. The strap of the bag containing your belongings, all borrowed, none really _yours_ per se, sags loose in your grip; slipping from your fingertips, it drops in a soundless heap on the sidewalk beside you. Eyelids clamped, dampness of disbelief overflowing at the tight pressed edges, you count to ten; when your wet lashes lift it’s all still there – a memory made tangible. 

Azaleas flower along the foundation; the deeply green shrubs heave their fragrant burden of pink blooms up toward a wraparound porch unique in the neighborhood for its impractical lack of a railing – a feature you considered a benefit until the afternoon you broke your wrist launching a brand spanking new 10-speed bike on a bet off the side in a daredevil effort to bridge the neighbor’s neatly trimmed boxwood border; the long-knitted break in bone throbs as the recollection races through your mind of the summer spent in a cast frowning longingly at that cherry red beauty of a bicycle gathering dust in the corner of the garage.

There hangs the green shutter, slightly askew, missing several slats, outside your bedroom window. It sways on the hinge _just so_ in a gentle buffet of wind producing a creak so familiar you would know, blindfolded, there’s surely a powerful storm sweeping in from the East. The burgeoning breeze blows loose strands of hair across your cheeks to tickle your nose as if in teasing confirmation of the impending tempest. Texas storms exist both fearsome in destructive potential and astounding in grandeur, and the walls of home always kept you safe from their wrath. A subtle shiver of excitement courses your body at the familiar electricity surging in the air.

Even the cliché fairy-tale white picket fence perimeter surrounding the front yard – whose upkeep you were charged with every summer from when you were old enough to wield a brush and dip it in a paint bucket – sits intact; the pristine white luster of each post gleams, a welcoming toothy smile enticing passersby to step on up to the doorstep and ring the brass bell framed beneath matching brass house numbers to say ‘ _Hello neighbor!’_ and partake of a glass of your mother’s locally legendary lemonade. You can almost taste the sweet sandy grit of sugar on teeth mingling with peels of tart rind swirling over your tongue to quench the thirst of a hot afternoon.

And yet, for all the welcome likeness whose brick walkway looms not ten yards away, you remain a frozen fixture out front. The effect of seeing your lost home – a haven in a world that technically isn’t _yours_ – instead of being comforting, vaguely unsettles; it’s very much like looking into a funhouse mirror, except you’re the one grotesquely distorted in the face of non-apocalyptic normalcy. The slightest tentative movement forward on your part toward the facade seems to skew you to the depths of your soul; it shines a paralyzing beacon into that alcove of your heart that knows coming here, especially like this, at the expense of Castiel’s trust, was a mistake.

Stuck in this dithering delay, you hear Cas’ truck approach before you see it; the squeak of the stiff suspension unmistakably cleaves the otherwise suburban silence. Pulling up to the curb, cutting the cantankerously sputtering engine, squinting at you through the dusty windshield, he climbs out without a word. His stare drifts over his shoulder to the innocuous seeming house so raptly holding your attention as he shuts the door; faint recognition rises in his awareness that this place matches the home he saw sprawling in the smoky vestiges of your memory.

Transfixed by a light switching on and the shadow of a figure moving beyond the illuminated red-checkered curtains of the kitchen – someone clearing dinner dishes you suppose – you inhale a shaky breath and avoid looking at the angel now standing beside you.

The demand for some kind of an explanation resides implicit in his continued silence. He gazes ahead, hands shoved in his pockets, indirectly reproving you with taciturn fortitude.

Tucking your chin to your chest under the weight of your duplicity, deeply regretting disappointing him, you quietly mumble, “I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you.”

He knows you’re not lying; it doesn’t make deceiving him – any of them – okay. Lips a taut line, he still says nothing.

You glance sideways – his stone-faced expression defines indeterminacy. Thunder rolls nearer. Wind violently bangs the green shutter. The hem of his trench coat flutters around the rigid column of his body. Your voice quavers. “Cas, please say something.”

Blues fixed on the lighted window, irises reflecting the shimmers of lighting piercing the churning clouds overhead, he asks in a curtly clipped cadence, “What I don’t understand is how you coerced Rowena into going along with this charade.”

“It wasn’t like that-” you falter when his regard inclines to you. Unlike his stoically set features, his eyes aren’t unreadable; the hurt of your betrayal dims their brightness. Feeling the coolness of their sustained scrutiny prickle your skin, you look at the ground to avoid the pain and reproof. “When I brought her the feather, she asked where I was from. You know, small talk.” A self-recriminating shrug over how quickly the stupid little thing snowballed into this mess. “I-I told her.” A stutter. “When she did the location spell …” An earnest glance upward. “I-I didn’t know she was going to say it, I didn’t-”

“No, you _didn’t_ , did you?” Jaw flexing, his mouth thins further; a subtle flare of the nostrils discloses the unsuppressed anger. He shakes his head slowly as he speaks, “ _Didn’t_ stop us from taking an unnecessary detour. _Didn’t_ think about the lives you put at risk by saying nothing – not just Sam and Dean pursuing a potentially dangerous archangel on their own, but the entirety of this world if we failed in the task.”

You step backward, shrinking from his condemning manner.

He seizes you by the upper arm to inhibit your withdrawal and spins you, forcing you to face him.

The firm clasp of his fingers borders on being unkind in roughness; it reminds you of the other _him_. The gesture compels you to meet the dejected glaze of his eyes where a flicker of fire flares within that dark glower when you choke out a startled whimper.

Fingertips digging into your flesh, he growls, “Y/N, the people in there – they aren’t your family. That’s _not_ your home. _You don’t belong here_.”

Tears springing at the cruelty of his words – and the harsh reality of them – shuddering bodily with a sob, you yank your arm from his grasp. Stumbling into the street, you catch your balance slumping against the bed of the truck.

Bending to pick up your discarded duffle, he makes no motion to comfort you. “Get in the truck, we’re going-” He stops himself before referring to the bunker as _home_ ; it’s not yours – thoughts diverting to Heaven’s current angel-less predicament and its imminent demise, a part of him still resolutely believes it’s also not his, not exactly. He glances once more toward the mirror of your remembered home.

The first fat pellets of rain begin to spatter the surface of ground so desiccated by drought they bounce. Brilliant white energy unleashes in a blinding flash above. A shocking peel of thunder cracks the atmosphere.

Prying open the passenger door, Cas carelessly tosses the bag into the foot well and circles to the other side.

Ducking from the onslaught of rain, shivering in the cold slick of wet saturating your skin, you clamber numbly up into the seat and tug the door closed.

Observing your form huddled in the seat as far from him as physically possible, realizing his callousness was perhaps in part redirection of his own frustration with a sense of belonging, he gazes at the mud-streaked glass for a moment, heart aching for you, but not quite knowing how to apologize. “Y/N, I-”

Before he can utter a missive of remorse, you sniffle, “Are you going to tell Dean?”

Too worried about where you went, whether you were safe, tracking you through the cab dispatcher, and ultimately presented with your subterfuge, he hadn’t planned that far ahead. Anticipation of Dean’s antipathy again agitates his ire over the situation. Any softness of compunction he feels dissipates – he’s done defending you to Dean. “You mean, am I going to tell Dean he was right about you distracting me from the mission?” He cranks the ignition and shoots you a scowl. “No, _I’m_ not going to tell Dean.”

For an instant, the warmth of relief wraps your trembling frame. The feeling is transitory.

“ _You_ are,” he grumbles. Revolving the steering wheel, revving the engine, he swerves the truck wide back toward the highway and the direction of your penance.

Twisting to peer out the window through the waves of windblown rain, you watch the house and hope disappear; it occurs to you that the angel is right, you don’t belong here, and what’s more, you can never go home again – it’s lost forever to you; and now, you fear, you’ve lost him, too.


	15. Rifts

You stare at the ceiling, focus fixed on a speck of dust engaged in a wildly agitated dance upon the verge of the air conditioning vent spewing frigid air. An unruly wisp of hair taps the skin of your forehead in the blast. You swipe at the tendril with unfeeling nubs of fingers, not bothering to stick them back beneath the blanket.

_Numb_.

That’s the proper word to describe the state of your senses – your base experience of living, _no_ , subsisting – since returning from Amarillo.

With every day, missed touch, minute, evaded look, blink, heartbeat, _moment_ since, the coldness descends ever deeper to freeze the fluttering fringes of your heart; the coldest fount of all being the apparent indifference of an angel who once cared. _Seemed_ to care.

A lifetime ago, a matter of weeks stretching into an age, you knew without doubt from direct experience angels didn’t care – _couldn’t_ care – about humans. Angels existed for cruelty, wrathful beings created to annihilate and not nurture emotion. Then you woke up to a second chance and a second Cas.

_Number_.

If the bunker’s confines loomed bleak in the landscape of your perception before, during all those convalescent weeks tormented by paralytic headaches in the sunlight impenetrable fortress protecting you as a caged guest of honor, hollow halls echoing your endless pacing footsteps and the comings and goings of two brothers and an angel determined to save their family from entrapment in an alternate universe and humanity as a whole from an impending archangel invasion, the same thick concrete walls offer very little functional shielding from within against the fallout frustration of that trust betrayed angel whose gentle blue gaze once held a solace of warmth for you in the ruins of your mind but now sheens icy and avoids your searching one – searching the cold light with fading hope for signs of thaw, for a kindled fire of forgiveness to comfort the chill sinking into your bones, for shelter from the solitude shrouding your soul and a reprieve from the separateness, the deep disconnect from anything and anyone, you feel in this place.

Pink blossoms, picket fences, angels, _apologies_. Lashes shutting to stem a rise of tears, your thoughts wend back along the cold drafts to the night of your return.

To say Dean was miffed when you revealed your complacence in the grand witch-instigated homecoming detour of Amarillo – presenting your sullen figure with unfeigned gloom, round shouldered, dewy eyes swollen, remorseful in mumbling contrition, to the nonplussed yet nonetheless grin-gilded hunter swigging a victory beer in the kitchen –  nonplussed, that is, by your and the angel’s early arrival back when he’d clearly intimated you and Cas should spend a few days getting to know each other in uninterrupted non-Winchester adjacent carnal glory – would be an understatement.

Cas tarried – brooding with his hands hidden in his pockets to mask the involuntary shaking in denying their wanting to reach for you to soothe the effects of his callousness – beyond the threshold stairs to observe his friend’s reaction and garnered no sense of satisfaction whatsoever from the scene. Rather, he experienced a sharp stab and pang of self-loathing in his own heart for forcing you to declare culpability for the fiasco rather than stand by your side to defend you from the consequences of Dean’s often stormy ire and bear the burden himself; if he weren’t so enamored of you, so distracted, so careful not to cause you more distress by picking through your thoughts and emotions, he might have seen this coming, or at least _sensed_ it.

Cas told you it had to be this way; he said nothing else in the rain-pelted 8-hour journey back to the bunker, and if this is what he wanted, you were damn well going to give it to him after breeching his trust, if only in hopes of recovering it. So, lips trembling, tears streaming reddened cheeks, you never once looked to Cas or prayed to him; although, knowing he was right there watching, every cell of your body screamed for him to swoop in and save you.

By the time you began to pour out a post-confession apology in affront to Dean’s furious discourse concerning the stakes you selfishly ignored in your pursuit of a home that wasn’t your home because– _“You forget you don’t belong here, sweetheart? You put our one shot at grabbing Gabriel in jeopardy, and for what? For nothing. Whatever family you have, they’re over there!”_ –the angel had skulked away down the hall shadowed by a cloud of guilt believing he’d irrevocably destroyed whatever foundations of affection existed between you and he.

The failure – _his_ failure of you, not some overtly cruel alternate version’s failure – came to him as no surprise; accepting self-defeat in sullen silence, he acquiesced then to a path of avoiding any unnecessary interaction with you to minimize further damage as you’d suffered too much pain already from the likes of angels carrying the moniker of Castiel.

Sam, typical of his empathetic nature, slipped a long arm snug around your shoulders and stepped in to the rescuing role of knot-browed reason wielder to subdue Dean’s blow up; after all, they found Gabriel, no one was mortally injured, why not have another beer because– _“Lay off! Dude, look at her, she obviously already feels bad enough. Yeah, maybe it was a mistake, but it’s understandable.”_ Understandable because of everything you lost. Because given the circumstances any one of them would have succumbed to the same temptation. Because family _always_ comes first.

The tense draw of your mouth relaxed at Sam’s verbal vindication of your actions and Dean’s reluctant beer-glugged nod of consensus. Weight lifted, straightening spine stiffening to bolster your slouched frame, the doorway gaped back empty of angels when your eyes sought out Cas to share the relief. Sam squeezed you tighter then, murmured something vaguely supportive that failed to register in your shock over the angel’s absence. None of the warmth of his embrace penetrated the first prickles of numbness flowing over your flesh.

_Numbest_.

“Y/N?” Sam pushes open the bedroom door.

You remain rigid, staring upward.

“We’re, uh” –moving into the room, fingers staying at the door knob, he regards the motionless mass of you laid out on the comforter with a crinkle of concern vexing his forehead, but there’s no time for luxuries of concern– “Gabe’s grace has regenerated enough to try to open the rift. Rowena’s set up in the library. We’ll be leaving soon.”

Breaking off your attention from the fleck of dust, you loll your head to the side to look at him. “Cas, too?” your voice quietly cracks.

Sam bobs in affirmation. A taut frown seizes his lips. “He still not talking?”

The tear sliding down your cheek to stain the pillowcase is enough answer.

“Give him some time.” Sam’s gaze drops to the floor. He realizes it’s ridiculous reassurance given the crappy timing. “We’ll be back in 24 hours, okay?”

“Okay,” you answer. You can tell by the airy inflection of his tone he’s not entirely confident they will be. Neither are you. You know where they’re going.


	16. Speak of the Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dialogue and described scene up to Castiel’s italicized/bolded “What?” belongs to the SPN writers (although character internal reflections are all my assumptions).

“Another fun, great choice.” Sam’s jaw sets, the resignation in his hazel eyes as they avert from Dean and Cas mingles with remembered fear and rekindled anger at the notion of having no logical choice but to involve Lucifer. None of them finds the idea of needing the devil appealing. He knows Cas is right, though; with the failure of Gabriel’s scanty and weakened grace to sustain an open rift and time running short, there is no other choice.

Straightening up and squaring his shoulders where he leans, listening, against the cool steel of the kitchen counter, Dean wears an acerbic smile. “Well, hey, bright side is, even if we do pull it off we still only get 24 hours in the apocalypse world. And Rowena’s right, we’ll be lucky to even hear a word of mom and Jack much less save ‘em, so …” Feigning being upbeat, he gives two thumbs up, winks, and clicks his tongue.

The sharp cluck snaps Sam’s past torture wandering mind back into the present. Dean’s sarcastic summary coalesces into a thought. “Wait a second,” he lightly exhales into the tense atmosphere of the room, a breath of optimism.

Cas recognizes the miniscule signs of positivity pulling at the younger Winchester’s anxious features. **_“What?”_** he asks. 

“What if” –irises glinting in the fluorescent light as his focus flits between his brother and the angel, Sam rises from his seat on the steps and shakes out his long legs– “what if we can use Lucifer to keep the rift open?”

The quirk of Dean’s brow mutely prompts, _‘What do you mean?’_

Sam’s gaze settles on Cas. “What if we can keep him alive and milk his grace to keep the rift open. Payback. _Fuel_.”

“It is possible” –Cas nods and rubs a contemplative thumb across the scruff dotting his chin– “that is, assuming he can be restrained for long enough; and that’s a pretty far-fetched assumption.”

“Maybe Rowena can help with that,” Sam suggests, allowing a faint hopeful smile to touch his lips.

“Maybe,” Cas murmurs, blues assuming a dubious squint given the team’s history of failure in such lofty endeavors.

“It’s worth a try.” Dean steps forward and clasps Cas by the shoulder. “Besides, what’s the worst that could happen?” he daringly adds in affront to chasing after yet another seemingly impossible to achieve goal.

Sam snorts a laugh through his nose. “Let’s see what Rowena has hidden up her sleeve then.” He pivots and scales the stairs to the hall in a single stretch of the legs.

Dean’s fingers clench around Castiel’s shoulder as the angel moves to follow. “Hold up there, buddy.”

Halting any further attempt at momentum, Cas casts his friend a questioning glare.

Dean bellows, his words booming into the hall on Sam’s departing heels. “Sammy, we’ll catch up” –he meets Cas’ askance and slightly gaping stare– “there’s something important I need to talk to Cas about first.”

Brow contracting in confusion about what there could possibly be of import that hasn’t already been discussed as regards the mission, and not having cognizantly done anything stupid of late without having informed the Winchesters, Cas remains silent.

Lifting both brows until his freckle-flecked forehead transforms into a stack of wrinkles, Dean harshly clears his throat. “Speaking of avoiding dealing with things, what are you planning to do about Y/N? You can’t ignore her forever.” He reconsiders, which results in another wrinkle jumping on the heap. “I mean, I suppose technically _you_ could, but that’s not the point.”

Cas drops his shoulder and turns to shift out of Dean’s grip. Several distancing strides take him around the edge of the table. Reaching out, he plucks up the salt shaker and peers at his glassy reflection in the smooth sheen of porcelain. It’s just like Dean to underscore matters of the heart in the midst of impending doom; and the angel’s heart has certainly felt heavy these last few days, aware of every aching beat of the organ within his vessel’s chest and the tightening of his throat when he perceives the lingering of your scent clinging to the fabric of his trench coat. Swallowing his guilt and resolve in a thick gulp, he relocates the salt shaker to the exact center of the table and slides the pepper shaker, with concentrated deliberation of motion, over to join it.

“Cas, get over it.” Dean stands directly behind him again. “She made a mistake. We’ve all make mistakes, and much worse ones.”

“It’s not that” –Cas glances sidelong at the hunter, his mouth pressed into a thin line– “I hurt her Dean. _I_ hurt her when she had already suffered profound agony and nearly died at my hands.”

Dean’s fingers pick up a fistful of coat collar and sinew overlying the crook of the angel’s neck. He spins him around so that Cas is forced to hold the edge of the table for balance. “Not yours, _his_.”

Cas looks downward, attention tumbling from the blue silk of his tie down to the scuffed mahogany leather and faded yellow-striped laces of Dean’s rubber-soled boots planted mere inches from his – a threatening proximity and certainly defying Dean’s professed concepts of personal space.

Dean jostles the angel roughly at the nape for emphasis and to garner his drifting attention. “There’s a difference between him and you, and whether you choose to acknowledge it or not, she knows it.”

Castiel’s ribcage shudders with a sigh. Damp-lashed melancholic drooped lids rise to peer into greens gleaming with an inner glow of challenge to back the man’s verbal missive. The angel’s gravel tone drowns in the gloom of defeat despite Dean’s assertion. “It doesn’t matter, Dean. She lost everything over there except her life. She has a second chance and I don’t want to – _can’t_ – see her hurt anymore, especially on account of _me_. If that means denying whatever bond exists between us” –he pauses to gather the stoicism to speak his next words– “well, that’s just the way it has to be.”

Aspect changing to one dark-lined by deep disapproval of Castiel’s motive, Dean shoves him backward and releases his neck. “That’s a hell of a selfish way to look at it,” he grumbles. Sticking his hands in his jean’s pockets, he puts a couple feet of space between them – space mostly for Cas to think about the unadulterated idiocy of his angelic reasoning.

Pushing off the table with his palms, Cas shadows his friend's retreat. “I’m only thinking of her wellbeing.” He can sense in the subtle shimmer of gold glittering Dean’s gaze that this, too, is a ridiculous explanation of intent. This time, he doesn’t avoid Dean’s accusatory glower.

“Bull!” Dean extracts a hand from the snug confines of denim to wag a pointed finger at the angel. “Haven’t you seen her moping around the halls? She hasn’t been out of her room in days. _Days_! Barely speaks a word to any of us. She’s miserable.”

Dean’s agitated figure blurs in the angel’s vision as tears begin to prick his eyes. He knows this is the truth; and worse, one he has tried and failed to suppress from his perception by lying to himself about you being better off without him involved in your life despite the manifest evidence to the contrary.

“Sam went to tell her we were leaving this morning and do you know who she asked about? _You_. You not saying goodbye yourself, not offering her some relief, some peace when there’s a good chance we never make it back, that was a dick move. Whatever else either of you feels, you’re her friend, Cas. I know you know what that means. There’s still time to make things right; so, if only for her _wellbeing_ , be a friend.”

A shiver courses Castiel’s vessel at the edict because, of course, Dean’s correct. Not that the angel’s moral compass inherently skews far from the goal of goodness that embodies true North, but he has learned over the years to embrace an occasional Winchester-assisted adjustment toward understanding what it means to need to self-sacrifice in order to do the right thing for someone you care about. Someone you _love_.

Grunting, satisfied by the angel’s silence that he left nothing unsaid and that he understands, Dean bobs his head and stomps up the stairs to pursue Sam.

Cas tarries alone for a moment – chestnut hair, pinked cheeks, and beige coat a warm contrast in the stark steel, grey, and white of the kitchen – to wipe the wetness collected at the corners of his eyes before hurrying to catch up.


	17. Willkommen!

You sit on a fallen tree trunk stripped by weather and time of the remnants of its roughened bark at meadow’s edge nursing your woe in the peaceful haven Cas shared with you on that first fateful bunker outing together. The season’s rain and shade of surrounding trees lends a bracing dampness to air freshened by clusters of purple aster and sunny wild coreopsis blooms. Every so often, your toes prod the spongy mound of moss beneath bare feet; the earth thereon is scattered with contrasting piles of yellow petals plucked from the crowns of flowers, unlucky demise the result of their proximity to your person – a person absent-minded with need to apoplectically occupy fingers by dismembering the delicate buds one by one whilst reciting in silent solitude the not very cheering and pitifully childish mantra, _‘He loves me, he loves me not.’_

You couldn’t bring yourself to stay inside today knowing the rift was opening and Cas was leaving, with feeling as though the tattered bits of hope still anchored in your heart at the possibility of his coming around and forgiving you might come completely untethered in his absence. He didn’t even bother to say goodbye himself, a slight you can only assume expresses the uncaring truth of his angelic nature; in which case, shame on you for letting down your guard and letting him in when you knew full well the sinister substance angels are made of. You wonder if Sam drew the short straw in announcing their imminent departure. You wonder if any of them are ever coming back or if, like before Dean rescued you, you’ve lost everyone you care about to _that_ devastated world and must endure alone in this strange one.

A sharp snort and stomp of hoof draws your attention up and out into the field. The twin fawns, white spots fading on tawny coats with maturity, cautious of the salt smell and sniffling sounds of a human quietly sulking and seething, creep into the clearing to join you. Ears flicking, the larger of the two fixes her brown-doe eyes on your slumped figure. After a moment, her steady gaze shifts, drifting deeper into the wood beyond where you sit; her wary regard softens. Though not visible to you at this distance, the mirror image of a man in a trench coat reveals in the enameled glaze of her eyes – a man she knows simply as the sweetness of apples. Satisfied no danger exists, she paws at the ground and drops her head to join her sister in grazing upon the dewy grass.

Rounding the log with seraphim stealth of silence, Castiel sinks beside you.

At least you assume it’s the angel, certain anyone else at all would have sent the deer running in fright. For fear of shattering the illusion he’s here, that he didn’t leave after all, you keep your focus trained ahead.

He, too, looks forward, crossing and uncrossing his arms in a reflexive quest for comfort in the atmosphere of guarded awkwardness which general precedes the breaking of ice and subsequent admission of personal failings invariably followed by a vulnerable outpouring of bottled emotion which to him, as a divine being honed to conceal such sentimental weaknesses with wrathful righteousness, feels nearly as unnatural as it does natural. Unable to subdue the inner tumult of manifest feelings, he fidgets – a soldier waging war within the battleground of a vessel containing aloof angelic reason and a heart hewn to love humanity, the opposing ends battling to do the right thing by you.

The spastic shuffle of limbs in the otherwise hushed setting is enough to drive you bonkers. You reach out sideways, the impulse not entirely in your conscious control, and seize his hand to still the closest fretting limb. He does not stiffen at the suddenness of your touch, nor does he pull away when your fingers flex and fold, seeking the warmth and security of the spaces between his own.

You hold each other thus, unspeaking, watching the deer without really watching them, for what seems a stretch of eternity.

The fawns, perhaps sensitive to a tension strained to the pressure point of bursting, grow weary of munching. Fuzzy dew-soaked muzzles quivering, they decide in a subtle show of twitching withers and flinching flanks to embark on a winding path across the meadow. Disturbed from tall grassy posts, the translucent wings of small flies take flight, glittering the sky in the wake of their departure.

As the dim thickness of the bordering forest swallows up the creatures and outward tranquility again reigns supreme, Cas speaks. “I owe you an apology.”

You turn, a startled gasp catching in your throat at the blueness of his irises after being deprived of their gentle light for so many days. Shaking your head, you murmur, “You don’t owe me anything.” It’s an honest correction – he healed your mortal wounds with his grace and cleared the scorched ruin of your mind to give you back your memories. Wanting anything beyond these miracles seems greedy; although, at the sight of the doubtful smile tugging at the corner of his mouth over your contradiction, the swiftly thumping knot of muscle wedged inside your chest tells you despite all reason the heart nonetheless desires _more_.

His small smile dissolves almost as quickly as it appeared, replaced by a contrite pout. “I behaved” –he pauses to glance upward in search of a grand and meaningful explanation. Finding none in the grey clouds above, he settles for the humble truth– “ _selfishly_.”

“Me too,” you contend. “ _More so_. You saved my life and I-”

“Acted as anyone who lost everything and everyone they cared about would under the circumstances.” Interrupting your attempt at self-contempt, he squeezes your hand tighter. “Please forgive me for allowing frustration to get the better of me” –he brings his fingertips up to caress your cheek– “for forgetting you have feelings too. If you permit me, I’ll try to do better.”

His sincerity extracts an airy breath of pardoning laughter and bright twist of smile from you. “I’d say you’re only human, but …”

Chin dropping to his chest under the weight of his matching beam of a grin, he lets go a husky chuckle.

Soles of bare feet slipping on the moss, a relief of warm tears brimming over your lashes, you dive to embrace the angel.

Opening his arms to your scrabbling hug, he winds them about your waist to draw you into his lap and pull you firm to his torso. He buries his nose into your tousled hair to nuzzle and kiss the top of your head.

It’s there, clasped in the refuge of revived affection, it occurs to you to ask why he’s still here when he was supposed to leave hours ago with Sam and Dean and Gabriel. “Cas, what happened with the rift?” you mumble the query into the cushion of his coat.

He smooths a hand up your back. “We” –he hesitates, fisting and flattening his fingers at your spine– “we need another source of archangel grace. Gabriel’s is too weak to maintain the gateway to your world. I came to talk to you about that.”

You incline backward slightly to peer up at him. “How can I help?”

“We have a plan. It’s not a great plan” –he frowns, blues sheening in a serious darkened glint as he continues– “or even a _good_ one. Sam accurately called it one of the worst plans ever and Dean’s sarcasm was evident even to me, but it seems to be the only option available to us if we want to rescue Jack and Mary and stop Michael.”

“What’s going on?” You squirm to sit up straighter, steadying yourself by clutching the lapels of his coat.

His tone tumbles gravely deeper. “I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything, angel.” Freeing a hand, you reach up to run your fingers through the silky sweep of chestnut locks gathered at his temple.

He looks at you hard, eyes narrowed and roving your features like he’s searing a mapped memory of your face into his celestial consciousness; after a few breathless heartbeats, he nods, lids relaxing their squint to blink entreatingly wide. “Y/N, I need to know you’re safe, no matter what happens.”

A spasm of emptiness snatches at the steady rhythm of your heart. In the skipped beats, you sense what’s coming next – he’s about to ask you to leave just when you’ve reconciled. You bite back the argument brewing on your tongue.

Regardless of the uneasiness he feels flowing through your veins, he continues in hope elucidation of the danger will assuage your trepidation. “As we speak, Rowena, Gabriel, and the Winchesters are attempting to capture Lucifer to bring him to the bunker in order to use him as a power source to keep the rift open. To do so means we need him alive.”

“You’re bringing the devil … here?” you gulp, although the news does nothing to diminish your desire to remain.

“Yes, and if you’re to be safe, you should be somewhere else.” He ignores the slow objecting wiggle of your head. “It isn’t as far as I’d like, but in Sioux Falls we have friends …”

“Cas” –you press a palm to his heart– “I’m staying.”

An anxious line creases his forehead at your protest. “If you think what happened to you on your world was bad, multiply that by a hundred thousand times and that’s what happens if Lucifer manages to free himself. He’s without mercy. Think about it.”

Unmoved, you enfold yourself back into his embrace. “There’s nothing to think about. I need to be here to make sure nothing happens to the rift. To make sure you come back.”

“Y/N …” Recognizing his frustration once again threatens to erect a wall between you, he stifles further reproach out of respect. Cuddling you close, he reassures himself you’re stubborn. _Strong_. “Very well … _little one_.”

_Little one_. A cold shiver courses your coiled form. The other Castiel called you that – not out of any tender endearment, but to reinforce your insignificance to him.

Dread darkens the perimeter of your vision; the colorful meadow wavers ribbon-like in ebbing blackness. “Wh-what did you call me?” you stutter in a fraught whisper; the tentative wriggle from the angel’s grasp rapidly evolves into a desperate struggle to free yourself as his grip constricts your movements.

“I said, you did very well, little one,” he repeats in the wrong voice, _his_ nasally strangely accented voice.

Eyelids clamping, you try to believe this is a nightmare.

Snippets of memory roar through your mind in a vacuum of wind: Cas – _your_ Cas – cutting Lucifer’s throat. The golden bolt of the rift opening in the library. Cas’ parting kiss before stepping through it that felt too much like a final goodbye. The devil’s escape. Rowena’s threat to abandon them all and your frantic plunge back into your world through the flickering rift, unarmed and unequipped, to warn the others and because you couldn’t imagine being separated from your angel forever.

The greater your panic to be free, the more agonizing the reality of entrapment. You discover then you cannot scream, the fingers gripping your gorge prevent any sound from escaping your lips or air from entering your lungs. You verge on blacking out, having no such luck as the vice relents to let you suck in a gasp in order to keep you conscious.

“Open your eyes,” he commands.

The skin sheathing your wildly darting orbs unwillingly parts to comply with the order. An unsympathetic appearing Englishman with fractured facial structure and shrouded in mercenary black frowns at you from where he hangs by the wrists from the beam of the ceiling. Beyond him, a fiery redhead slumps comatose where she sits bound and bleeding in a chair.

Castiel tilts you by the neck, wrenching your regard with angelic force from the others in the room to center instead on him; features alive in a firestorm of tics, dead opaque eye and menacing blue one searing you to the soul, he yanks you closer. Brushing his convulsive lips to yours, he growls, “Welcome home, _my_ little one.”


	18. The Good Soldier

One broad hand fastened around your throat – the thumb poised perilously between jaw and jugular, your pulse pounding beneath the roughened pad – the other fist digging uncomfortably into the meat of your thigh to secure your squirming figure to the chair, sneering face suspended mere inches from yours, Castiel studies with macabre fascination the panicked astonishment dominating your demeanor in reaction to the callous caress of his lips that arose in such stark contrast to the fondness feathering your features only a moment ago as you remembered the other of him.

The inquisitive gleam of his blues diminishes, brow of his scarred eye twitching at a sudden swished onslaught of wings disturbing the dust-swirled firmament of the abandoned gas-n-sip where they hold you; this close, the minute muscular movement and the tenseness electrifying his fingers where they bite to bone conveys his unpleasant surprise at the unannounced angelic arrival.

“Cassie, Cassie, _Cassie_.” An angel suited up less tactically for combat and more for a Napoleonic era gala – sporting, as he does, a well-fitted navy waistcoat lined in crimson satin, capped in ostentatious gold fringe detail at the squared shoulders, streamers of useless buttons shining along every available seam, with neatly pressed crisp white jodhpurs, and polished black leather boots peeking out beneath spotless spats – dryly _tsks_ your captor’s name from where he manifested in an unoccupied corner; evidently the officers comprising this angelic garrison are permitted certain liberties when it comes to their garb and mannerisms. 

Unanticipated _and_ unwelcome – thick lashes lowering in recognition of the tenor tone, Castiel subtly cringes into his coat collar; the unforgiving crush of his fingers constricts deeper into your muscle and neck in his effort to maintain a charade of composure.

“Cuh-cuh,” you choke on an airless cry of his name invoking mercy. Fringes of consciousness dimming, the cracked whimper vibrates and dies in your larynx where cruel reflex compresses blood flow and threatens to cave-in your windpipe.

Sniffing a sigh, blinking wide, something verging on abject agony tinted with a shade of pity – an expression defiant to his ruthless nature – bares itself to you.

At the brink of blackout, you see in that shift of stormy color something of _your_ angel – the one who rebelled against Heaven at the cost of losing everything he knew, who endures unending doubt, who understands you can’t go home again, who loves humanity, who loves _you_ , who struggles daily to determine what is right and good in the world and to do the rightest in a world of wrong.

You glimpse for a split second through the black barriers shrouding this angel’s heart what might have been and what _is_ – an iteration of your Castiel who was denied choice; and in _your_ heart, if it be the last thing you will ever do, purity of love forgives him of fault.

He feels that balm of forgiveness pall his skin as the life ebbs from your body. He feels … _regret_. Grip slackening, his grace diffuses through your offended flesh with enough reflected heat to sooth and save, though not wholly heal. It’s closer to an act of kindness than you would have thought him capable – closer than _he_ thought himself capable.

Harshly coughing to garner Castiel’s obviously divided attention, swaggering forward a few steps into the naked wash of the overhead fluorescent bulb weakly illumining the center of the space, palm resting on the hilt of a sword hinged at his hip, the flashy newcomer glances about the grimy walls converted into an improvised interrogation chamber with a lip curled in unguarded disgust. “When they informed me I could find you in the trenches, I didn’t imagine you were in an actual _pit_ ,” he complains in a lilting French accent drifting on conversational. “This place is utterly abhorrent; I honestly don’t know how you manage.”

“Balthazar,” Castiel growls through a row of clenched teeth. The seraph’s benevolence, like the gentleness of his grace, slips ephemerally away. Nostrils flaring, mouth malignantly jolting into a smirk, he narrows his blue-lit focus on you in ominous intimation he is not done sifting through your memories – especially those memories concerning the _him_ for whom your heart beats with curious rapidity. “Can’t you see we are occupied here?” Breaking backward to confront the angelic intruder, his grip on your body and mind dissolves leaving you dazed and gasping. “You disrupt my work.”

“Never one to waste time on niceties, eh?” Balthazar casts you a disinterested cocked glance.

Absent angelic influence, the dull hot ache of faded bruising throbs in your thigh. Burning air punches into your lungs through an abraded throat. If you could direct the lumps of jelly defining your legs into motion, you’d attempt to flee. As it stands, or rather, _slumps_ , you sit secured by physical half-insentience. Judgement impaired by the shock of disorientation, you instinctively pray to Cas – _your_ Cas – for help.

Hearing your voiceless plea to the _other_ – the yearning of spirit, the faith you have in his ability to save you, the desperate need for _him_ – the Castiel brooding before you stiffens as a surge of sympathy taints the blood bounding through his vessel’s heart.

Balthazar shrugs in affront to the stone-wall of seraphim silence. “As you prefer, all work and no play – Naomi requires a report.”

“And?” Castiel prompts in a rising clipped tone, covering for the fact that every sinew of flesh and fiber in his vessel revolts with rigidity in shield against the softness of emotion striking him from within your soul.

“And,” –Balthazar’s eyebrows arc askance and knot– “what?”

You pray _louder –_ each contraction of your heart a deafening cry for _Cas_.

Overcompensating for and deflecting the impact of your prayers with a reminder of rank, demanding respect, concerned Balthazar hears and will betray even the quickly corrected course of compassion flooding his veins to Naomi, Castiel snarls, “And, what? _What_! Do you forget your place?”

Such intelligence would inevitably result in a reckoning all too familiar to the fragmentary framework of the seraph’s fundamentally rebellious and repeatedly reordered being – his countenance violently jerks to maintain forever slipping grasp on control, both of himself, and the situation. Jaw gnashing, he wishes you would shut up – would silence you himself, even, if it would not draw attention as to the motive. Or better yet, eying the door, he could drag you from this place, tuck you out of sight somewhere, plod through your memories one by one, take his time, just you and he _alone_.

Balthazar curtsies contritely. “Naomi requires a report,” he reiterates, bowing deeper to satisfy his captain’s abstracted scowl, adding a snide, “ _sir_!”

“I see.” Circling the insincere emissary, Castiel stops to stare at his comrade’s crooked spine, asking, “And why did she send you? Any one of the soldiers here could have delivered this message and wasted less of my time.” Cold weight of celestial metal encumbering his sleeve, he ponders stabbing the pompous messenger in the back; peace descends upon his frenetic features as he runs through the probability of being able to smite the other two angels, too, before they realize what is happening in order to beat a hasty retreat with you in tow. They wouldn’t be the first kin he selfishly slew to serve subjugated desire.

“She felt you might be distracted by the latest … _development_.” Balthazar lifts his chin to fling the inflection of the last word at you. Obeisant bend deepening, he simpers in self-defense against the rumble of incensed thunder building within his superior’s chest at the insinuation of subversion. “Questioning a loyalist like yourself, of course, is _absurd_.” Nebulously recollecting his place in the battalion’s pecking order, he mumbles a postscript of, “Sir.”

If Naomi suspects, then – stifling a shudder, Castiel stows his blade. “Let us resolve her concerns at once so I may continue my work here uninterrupted.” Prying a pair of gloves from his pocket and tugging them over his fingers, readjusting the snap of leather encircling his wrist, Castiel sweeps his glance over the impassive faces of the two other angels in the room. He wonders if they, too, perceive your continued prayers to _him_ and read anything into his reaction; for in that insulated alcove of his angelic heart, your pleas touch and arouse an empathy buried time and again by Naomi’s reprogramming. Therein shelters ineradicable traces of a love for humanity which his Father nurtured at his creation – the foundations of fidelity to the purpose of protecting and serving mortal souls that even Naomi’s worst cannot rend to her will. There dwells the crack in his chassis where regret creeps out and choice sits for the seizing.

And yet, if Naomi has her suspicions, if any of these angels express a similar concern or contempt, Castiel is already damned – compliance exists as the only recourse. He is nothing if not a good soldier. “The Kommandant awaits,” he states sternly. Gesturing at Balthazar to commence with the winged transport, he flicks his attention upon you.

Looking up, you catch the unmasked sheen of remorse in his regard in the moment before he vanishes. Despite the fear and pain he caused you, an incongruous hope for his return flutters and sinks in the hollow of your stomach on his departure.


	19. A Real Dead Ringer

“Well, you’re either exceptionally unlucky, or stupid,” Ketch remarks from where he sways; hitched to the ceiling, exposed torso etched in abstract lines of angelic graffiti, rivulets of fresh blood ooze around the chain biting into his wrists when he stirs to speak.

Comparatively unscathed, you scoff at the cocky – although, all things considered, bullseye – presumption of the English-accented stranger. “Yeah, and what does that make you? James freaking Bond?”

“Ah, feistier than last we met,” he observes, corner of his lip quirking into an unbeaten smile. His gaze coolly drags between two angels pacing the perimeter of the room in silence waiting for Castiel to return. “What I mean to say is, I’m certain very few can claim having survived Castiel’s cruelty only to be snagged a _second_ time.” He arches a bloodied brow begetting an effect of familiarity with your past and thus present predicament; although, what with your unconscious nearness to death when he and Dean stumbled on you, he doesn’t expect you to remember – it’s for the best considering he did little to aid Dean in getting you to the rift, and at one point even advocated they lob you off a cliff to end your suffering and throw the angels pursuing them off the scent. “As I said, unlucky or stupid,” he repeats.

You follow his gaze to the angels who don’t appear to be especially interested in your chatter. “You’re-”

“Consider me a friend from a foreign land,” he interjects, hoarse emphasis on the latter two words, before you can reveal unnecessary details. “And what of our mutual acquaintances?”

“I-I don’t know, I’m alone.” It’s the truth – Lucifer barred the entrance to the tunnel Sam, Dean, Cas, and Gabriel entered. You were compelled to use the mountain pass where the angels, unbeknownst to you, had set a snare to capture Ketch and Charlie to bring them in for questioning regarding the resistance.

“Unfortunate for us,” Ketch hums, a little to dryly to be sincere, conceding in afterthought, “although I suppose your ignorance _is_ fortunate for our friends.”

The terrifying implication of Castiel’s stroll through your recent memory hits you then. This time, he wasn’t a spy standing on the shores of recollection sorting through your brain and smoking out what he wanted while scorching the rest as you resisted. This time, you willingly let him in. You trusted him, allowed him to witness everything you learned and lived these last few weeks through Cas’ eyes. The knowledge of your unwitting betrayal, the danger to Cas and the others as a result, strains your voice to a choked whisper. “Wh-what did I tell them?” you stutter, although you already know the answer.

Ketch’s bruised brow furrows in dispassionate deliberation. “I expect it might be simpler to summarize what you _didn’t_ tell them.”

“Gallopin’ Gorgons!” Charlie wakes with a start in her shackled seat. “What happened?”

“Apocalypse. Ambush. Angels. Take your-” Ketch’s jaded rolled-eye retort is cut short by a sharp jab in the ribs with the butt of an angel blade.

Charlie hisses in sympathy for the blow.

“Enough,” mutters a third fair-haired crop-cut angel who has, up until now, been idling within earshot acting disinterested; evidently his patience wears thin.

“Oh, not quite,” Ketch sputters through airy gasps, metallic tang of iron varnishing his tongue, one or two ribs cracked and poking the lobe of a lung. “Still breathing.”

Tears opaquely daubing your vision, you divert your attention to the door, willing Cas to appear.

The nettled angel sneers menacingly in Ketch’s unblinking mien. Discerning simple somatic suffering will not break the already bloodied man’s will, he turns his torment to you; swinging a loosely closed fist backhanded, the ball of bone strikes your cheek with a sickening smack of knuckles sinking into soft flesh.

“Leave her be!” Charlie rattles her chains, managing to slide herself forward a few meager, and comically unthreatening, inches.

The force of the hit knocks you sideways off the chair. You totter to the floor, landing hard on your hands and knees. Shaking your head to clear your stunned senses, you spit shiny cherry splotches of stain onto the dusty beige boot prints crisscrossing the soiled tile surface beneath your splayed fingers. Blotting the back of your sleeve to your mouth where the blow’s force sorely echoes, casting a livid glance at the attacking angel, your tongue gingerly prods the gushing split of lower lip left in its wake. Reaching out to grab the leg of the chair, slowly using slippery wooden purchase to stagger to your feet, your fierce and totally ill-advised consideration of rebuffing the angel’s action by hurling the chair in his general direction dies at the arcing inward of the door.

Darkly dressed figure framed by the dim of night beyond the doorway, Castiel squints at the scene; his disfigured blue gaze settles in a jerked setting of the jaw on the unstaunched flow of blood cascading your chin and dripping down the column of your neck to soak the flannel of your shirt. Human blood it seems – the outermost symbol of the soul’s suffering – is the only thing to universally show with any saturation of color on this God-forsaken world. The spasm of jaw rises in a wave to undulate his mouth in a clipped cadence. “This one is mine to break. Which of you touched her? Which of you disobeyed?” The ever spastically animated regard jolts to his angelic cohorts.

The possessive concern is at once chilling and bizarrely heartening. You remind yourself of his proven malevolence – the bruising clasp of fingers squeezing the life from you, the unforgivable violation of your mind; you remind yourself it’s your Cas bleeding through now to taint your perception in the same way this version caused you at first to question the genuineness of Cas’ care, kindness, and affection. And yet the softening of the malice dusking Castiel’s blues before to reveal deep agony, provoking pity, irreconcilably shakes your conviction of the irredeemable nature of his evilness.

The two angels uninvolved in the altercation exchange a look of disquiet, whether in apprehension of their associate’s immediate wrath or in concern for his peculiar preoccupation with you, it’s impossible to say.

The guilty angel’s expression gleams with indignation; he straightens his vessel’s spine and puffs the chest before speaking in defense, “What’s so special about her? She’s a prisoner, as insignificant as any other soul.”

You think a chair lobbed at the blonde angel’s thick skull would be a vast improvement on the smug not quite smile stealing over his features.

Scowl dipping his mouth downward, Castiel steps further into the room to slam the door, snorting, “That is not for you to say, Malachi.”

“And what of Naomi? What did _she_ have to say about your … _especial interest_?” He looks over a shoulder to recruit the opinion of his fellows in the matter, mocking, “We heard her praying to you, Castiel. Or should I say, _Cas_.”

Arms swaying, black-gloved fingers flexing into fists at his sides, an exercise in cool containment, Castiel smirks and strides casually forward. “Naomi understands the importance of my work.” He stops several feet from where you weakly stand using the chair for support to stare into your eyes until they rise. The same sympathy still softens the sinister sheen of his unscarred blue. “She trusts I will not permit anything to interfere with the mission. _Anything_.”

Goosebumps prickle your skin at the inflection. You seriously reconsider your impulsive wanting of him to return. He already knows everything you know, what more does he need? He – none of the angels – have any reason to keep you alive any longer. The realization stutters your heart.

Malachi scoffs a scornful sigh.

Shifting nearer, peering down at you with the tic of a smile ghosting his aspect, Castiel lifts a hand to peel off the tight fitting glove.

Anticipating the worst about to befall you, Charlie winces and ducks her chin.

Ketch sucks in a shallow pained gasp, stoically prepared to see your obliteration unfold.

All of your own accord, with no angelic interference securing you to the spot, fully aware of the fact he could snap your neck or smite the soul from your body then and there, you fail to flinch when he outstretches his bared fingers; it’s not bravery that stills you, it’s the hope you thought you lost so long ago – hope found a world away in the love of an angel and unfaltering in the face of his mirror.

Tenderly, he traces two fingertips along the swollen mass of your wounded trembling lip, healing the hewn flesh with a tingling trickle of grace. Withdrawing the touch, he raises the blood-smeared digits to lightly press his own lips; heavy-lashed lids flutter and droop for a moment recalling the memory of that first brushed kiss you shared with Cas – the deeply comforting caress conveying your acceptance of the broken being knelt before you in his fallen winged glory. Castiel reasons he and the _other_ are perhaps not so different. Eyes blinking open at the revelation, remembering his assertions to Naomi as to your potential value as a bargaining chip – a claim serving both the angelic cause and his selfish one – suppressing a yearning to experience _more_ , he instructs in a whisper, “Sit now, my little one. And _sleep_.”

Not of your own volition, you slump into the seat, somnolence shrouding your senses.

Distraction dealt with, Castiel turns his undivided interrogative attentions to Charlie; he has, after all, a mission to complete.

_Tenuously, you dream. Engulfed in dense fog, sat in the meadow near the bunker at the pond’s pebbled edge, stones round and cold beneath your thighs, legs extend with toes tickling the mirror-like water. Murmurs haunt the surrounding woods – snippets of speech about breaking points, raw nerves, and secrets flit through the trunks of trees. Twin fawns stand side by side on the opposite shore. Their ears pivot, tails flicking to warning white as a scream steals across a sky. You look up at the blanket of grey above illuminated not by a sun but by a jagged glowing line of blazing gold. A distant shout sounds, silencing the eerie murmuring and the scream. The rift goes dark. Your gaze drops to the fawns, no longer fawns, but transformed into two figures: One, that of your angel, worry vexing his features, reaching out for you across the widening distance of the water, your name written in the soundless yawning of his jaw; and the other, the darker angelic double, alarmed and afraid, turned not to you, rather tearing in flight toward the tangle of trees. When your mouth opens to cry out, it is not your voice that emerges._

“Secure the area!” the bellowed words echo in your mind and ears, yanking you to wakefulness. You know in the chaos Cas – _your_ Cas – is coming.


	20. The Reckoning

Charlie’s chilling scream piercing through the crackled tempered glass and boarded window slats of the derelict building and into the dusky night means there’s no time for pep talks; but it doesn’t mean, however much the desperate cry gets their adrenaline pumping, they don’t need a hastily assembled plan going in.

Dean grabs Jack roughly by the shoulder as the Nephilim attempts to continue the charge ahead after destroying an angel posted as guard outside with an explosive gold burst of grace. “Jack, you stay put. Anyone with a halo comes out that door, you put ‘em down, got it?”

“But-” The boy’s lips press together and pop open to utter the pretty unconvincing single syllable argument. 

Throat rumbling incoherently in a manner suggesting any and all further protests Jack might make in this moment are moot, Dean spins his green eyes and the angel blade poised in his grip upward. “Sammy, you’re with me. Mom, Cas, you go left.” The hunter crouches and stealthily bolts right toward a side entrance.

“We know you can help, and you are.” Sam pats reassurance into the boy’s back before ducking and darting off in his brother’s footsteps.

Jack accepts his assignment with a begrudging bob of the head.

Fingertips clamped across his brow, weapon clenched in his white-knuckled fist, Cas struggles – bleary eyed and brained – to focus through the deafening plea of your prayers at this proximity. You’re not supposed to be here. You’re supposed to be in the bunker; it’s not necessarily the safest place in that world what with being a bridge for the rift, but it’s safer than _this_ world, and safer still since Lucifer is here now and not _there_. Torn by an unflagging loyalty to his friends and surrogate son, he’s not certain with the stakes of the situation changed and his loved ones scattered and exposed to different degrees of duress, _who_ to protect when you _all_ need protection. Your beseeching howls for help, though, do resonate loudest in his head and heart.

Mary lays a palm to the angel’s sleeve to cement his attention; the concerned gleam of her gaze and the twist of her body in the direction indicated by Dean silently ask if he’s okay, and if he’s coming.

Thus conflicted, Cas nearly misses the whimper of his name emanating from the far end of the overgrown gas-n-sip parking lot. You’re not praying anymore, you’re petitioning aloud.

Mary hears you and, Dean must take after her when it comes to giving direction with zero room for a democratic vote, she whispers, “Go!” Hurtling herself on an opposite trajectory to the left side door, she’s not about to let her boys barge into that building without backup.

Blind to anything else, Cas stalks toward the sound of your voice, ignorant of the angel Jack smites as he moves to the perimeter.

*   *   *   *   *

Releasing Charlie, an amalgam of frustration and fear flashing over his features, Castiel spins. Striding toward the exit, self-preservation prompting a swift departure, he hauls you up by the arm as he retreats and drags you along with him. He left you behind once, before he knew what you were to him, or at least the _other_ of him. A compulsive longing for that drives him; perhaps a smidge of jealousy, too. After all, _this_ is your world, and you are his.

Vestiges of the angelically-induced nap wearing thin, you fight to find footing on numb feet and claw at where his fingers fasten firmly around your bicep. “Let me go!” you shout.

“Stop it, little one,” he scoffs over his shoulder at your scuffle for freedom. His fist cinches tighter into muscle as he slogs you across the threshold into the open air.

The pinch of pain hits you as a wave of nausea. Swallowing a rise of bile, you continue to resist. “Where are you taking me?” you spit and try to kick, unable to get enough purchase on the ground to mount a meaningful attack.

Dirt gone airborne in your wake coats the black of his coat. He doesn’t know where, only _away_ – away from here. Away from angels _and_ men. He barely comprehends the _why_. He doesn’t answer.

“Castiel!” you screech. “ _Cas_!” It seems the more defiant you are, the more hardened his hold.

Halting suddenly, he swings you boorishly round to face him. “I said,” –his mouth spasms as he leans nearer, laboring to stay in control– “ _stop it_.” His gaze drifts backward, perceiving some sound of pursuit too subtle for you to hear – Sam, Dean, maybe even _your_ Cas. Jaw gnashing, he shoves you ahead, pushing you to keep moving.

Planting your feet firmly in the gravel, you resolve on a different tactic. Appealing to the buried part of him that revealed itself to you in the burnished blue, you say his name again, persuasively softer, “ _Castiel_ , please. You’re hurting me.”

His fractious handling gentles somewhat at the soothing tone. He looks warily to wood’s edge.

“Castiel,” you repeat in a whispered exhalation. Fingers reaching up, you caress the tips tentatively to his cheek, garnering his rather astonished scarred regard – it’s evident the tactile tenderness is new to him. “You-you tried to help us once – humanity, didn’t you?” His skin starts and skips beneath your touch.

He glances back once more; a blur of beige movement emerges from the treed outskirts.

You keep talking, distracting, gambling words to win time, hitting on the truth. “And they punished you for it – clipped your wings, forced you to serve their will, didn’t they?”

A harsh hum catches in his throat, a half-hearted effort at denial. “What you say,” –he wags his chin– “it didn’t happen. I am a soldier. I serve _willingly_. I-I volunteered for this assignment.” A severe judder quakes his vessel; his lashes lower in a wince. The more he tries to suppress who he really is – an angel with too much heart, an angel who once put humanity first, and angel cruelly manipulated by Naomi to wage battle on wrong side of the war – the greater his loss of control.

You flex your fingers to cup his cheek. “It _did_ happen. You don’t remember because they took your memories too, manipulated you into someone else, a shell – just like you do to us. They turned you into a machine to do their bidding.”

Wiring of reason and recollection rerouted in a chaos of crossings and cuts to bypass his empathetic heart, minute muscles misfiring as his control falters in affront to the gentleness of your touch and accuracy of your supposition, he refuses even as tilts into the curl of your palm to concede to a possibility too painful to consider. “Little one … you don’t know _anything_ about me.”

“I _do_. Castiel, you have a choice.”

Doubting, his eyes open to lock on yours. “Choice? What choice? There is no choice.”

You make a final daring last ditch bid. “Angel, what does your heart tell you?”

They’re the wrong words; words so repulsive to Naomi’s reprogramming his automatic answer is as immediate as it is self-protective. “There is _only_ duty, to suggest otherwise is” –he’s too close, features a maelstrom of motion, for you to see the angel blade slip from his sleeve– “ _disobedience_.” He centers the lethally tapered tip of celestial metal directly over your heart. “And there is only one remedy for disobedience” –you feel a prickled warmth of blood when you shallowly gasp and your ribcage expands– “ _death_.”

Lids heavy, your eyes shut, prepared for the fatal plunge. In those stretched seconds of stillness, you’re sorry for what happened to him. Sorrier you didn’t go to Sioux Falls to stay safe like Cas wanted. You worry he’ll find a way to blame himself. You offer up a prayer of gratitude for these few borrowed weeks with him and, despite the rough patches, the happiness, love, and hope highlighting them you thought you lost forever.

The reverberating ring of metal bouncing on stone prompts you to blink.

The dropped blade lies lolling on the ground between you. His heart heard you, and in choosing life – _your_ life – Castiel’s countenance, no longer churning, is a sea of calm.

You have a mere instant to process what happened before he leaves, fleeing toward the armored truck a dozen yards off.

Dumbstruck, you watch Cas, weapon wielded, rush the vehicle and haul the unarmed Castiel out by the coat collar. Limply pinned against a column, the latter doesn’t attempt to mount a defense. They speak in hushed unhurried tones until Cas’ elbow swings backward to stab his mirror through the heart.

You stumble forward, a shriek lodged in your throat meant to stop him, to stay his hand, to tell him Castiel isn’t who you thought he was, who Cas thinks he is, that somewhere deep inside they are the _same_ , but it’s too late. You sink to your knees at the lifeless angel’s side in an emblazoned shadow of broken wings.

Cas crouches beside you, sliding a palm across your back and hooking a finger beneath your chin to pivot your tearful gaze to him. “Are you okay?”

You shake your head _no_ and lunge into his arms, weeping into the hollow of his neck. “You-you killed him. Cas, he-” You trail off in a tumult of tears.

Burying his nose into your hair, wrapping his arms securely around you, his eyes settle on the peaceful face of the fallen. “No, Y/N – I saved him from a worse fate. Killing him was more merciful than what would have befallen him once the angels learned he let you go.”

Sniffling, you nod into his shirt to indicate you understand – no place exists in this world for an angel sympathetic to humanity. He never had a chance.

“Come on” –straightening, he encourages you to stand, supporting your swaying figure around the waist– “let’s go home.”

“Home,” you exhale in echo. For so long the word held no tangible meaning – four empty letters with nothing except regret to occupy the void. Now there’s Cas, the bunker, a whole new world with him. “Yes,” you repeat in a wondering whisper, “let’s go _home_.”


	21. Eisodos

If Cas hears you coming, heels tramping the graveled-earth of Bobby Singer’s salvage yard as you traverse a path through bits and bobs of decaying metal, shattered glass, and the overgrown vegetation arising to swallow the remains of humanity’s vehicular ingenuity whole, the brooding stillness of his figure sat upon the rust-eaten frame of a vintage VW bug doesn’t betray acknowledgement of your approach. Sam said you’d probably find the angel out here, and here he is, eschewing social interaction in favor of isolation; or rather, seraphim _segregation_. Not that you blame him – half the people at the encampment think the only _good_ angel is a dead angel, and the other half don’t trust him as far as they can throw him, which given the muscular build of his vessel and angelically weighted advantage, isn’t very far at all. The thing about people is, they tend to talk; and angels, well they can’t help but hear hushed murmurs in deafening detail.

From the vantage point of a dozen or so yards away where you slow to circumnavigate what looks like a hunk of an armored tank, Cas appears engaged in rapt observation of the vine-swathed backend of a white delivery van parked opposite shedding flecks of paint like snow on the surrounding soil; moving nearer in night’s shroud of dark, borders of blackness illumined faintly by flame flickering from barrels for warmth for those patrolling the perimeter, you see the intensity of his concentration bends not outward, but inward – inwardly _sulking_ , you surmise.

“Hey, Cas.” Your breath fogs in greeting.

“Y/N.” The stern set of his jaw softens to form a slender smile around the utterance of your name; the respite sparked by your presence spreads to pink his pale expression and relax the stiffness of his shoulders into a rounded slump. His regard reels sidelong to settle on you; the grey already veiling his typically lustrous blues dims his gaze further in squinting distress at the sight of the five-fingered bruised imprint left by his doppelgänger deeply purpling your throat and imbuing your voice with a hoarse timbre.

Sensing his surge of remorse over the mark he didn’t create, you flip up the flimsy denim of your jacket collar to conceal it. Leaning against the hood beside him, palms flattening over the peeling paint to support your slouching frame, you avoid the imploring heat of his look. He offered earlier to heal the superficial, admittedly _sore_ , reminder of the other Castiel; you refused, counseling him to save his grace for more important matters – after all, you aren’t home safe … _yet_.

In the distance, the stalled engine of the school bus Dean and Bobby are attempting to resuscitate explosively sputters and dies. Dean bellows a bitter note, quickly outdone by Bobby’s gruff rejoinder. The acrid odor of burnt oil wefts through the atmosphere, singeing the nostrils. They still have a couple of hours to get the boxy behemoth running. Faith – buoyancy of wellbeing unfamiliar to you from long disuse – that everything will be fine cushions any anxiety you might have about getting out of here; you attribute the mind quieting comfort mostly to the seraph who saved you in more than just the literal sense.

Cas’ continual steady stare, the silence encumbered with his desire to mend despite your protest, and the brisk bite of pre-dawn air coalesce as a spine-tingling shiver to prickle the tiny hairs at your nape. You want to return the favor of faith, save him too, even if it’s merely from himself. “Sam said you were out here avoiding everyone,” you remark to break the ice.

“Not everyone,” he corrects. Without looking, he shifts his hand, seeking and covering your own where it rests on the domed hood next to his leg.

At the tender touch, natural and totally unhesitating on his part, he earns a half-grin tossed backward in his direction gratifying enough to mollify his fretting, for the moment, over your minor wound.

“How’s it going?” you ask, wriggling your hand to fit and flex your fingers snugly between his.

“It’s quiet,” he states, wrongly inferring you’re asking about his self-assigned post as sentinel when you really want to know how _he’s_ doing. “No sign of angels out there. Well, except Gabriel and Lucifer and Ja-”

“I meant” –you pivot, slotting your hips between his splayed knees. Reaching up to tuck a wayward curl overlying his temple neatly back into the hairline, two more dark-brown locks rebel to take its place– “how are _you_? What you did back there – I can’t imagine what that feels like, smiting yourself.”

Conflict contorts his countenance. Somberly glazed eyes tumble downward to the tangle of your hands. He pulls the bundle of digits into his lap where a thumb extricates itself from entwinement to swipe circles over your knuckles as he stalls to answer.

“I didn’t mean to pry,” you stammer, suddenly self-conscious about the accuracy of your supposition; laying a palm to his cheek, meekly smiling, you offer him an easy out of the awkward inquiry. He said it before – killing Castiel cleanly saved him from a worse fate for sparing you. Maybe it _is_ that simple – a soldier’s mercy with no lingering regret. Maybe you misread the moping.

“No, it’s okay. You’re not prying.” His head shakes, unshaven chin scratching at your skin. “It’s just-,” he sighs, searching for the right words to describe the emotion swelling in his heart. Lifting your held hand to his lips, he presses a light kiss to the delicate digits. “It’s _different_ to have someone care enough to ask me how I’m feeling. You asking, it’s … _nice_.”

The damp gathering on his lashes attests to how meaningful the cognizance of being the one cared for is to him. Not that he believes the Winchesters don’t care about him, but so long as the brothers have each other, neither of them is falling on their sword in sacrifice for the seraph self-sworn to stoically watch over them. Besides, Sam and Dean’s modus operandi relies on masking emotions and telling themselves and each other heavily tailored truths about how to feel as a sort of shield for coping with the bad day after day.

Killing Castiel _was_ a mercy, for the reason he told you – the angel would have faced Naomi’s wrath, been forced to torture soul after soul until the day humanity ceased to exist, and then be left to endure unending eternity ostracized from his kin as an outsider, belonging nowhere and to no one, burdened by everything he’d done and lost. What he hid was the fact killing him was a mercy for Cas, too; a profound _relief_ , because that version of himself – heart all but carved out of its celestial core with nothing except the fragile link Castiel witnessed and felt drawn to in your memory left to mitigate the capacity for cruelty – absolutely terrified him. His mouth motions to speak, to share with you the unabridged truth – no sound escapes except a smothered sob.

“C’mere.” Jerking at the lapels of his coat, encouraging him to slide to his feet and stand, you fold him to your chest.

The intimacy is the solace he needs. He nuzzles the sensitive stretch below your ear; scenting the dried sweat of day salting your skin, the sweetly exotic essence of you, a grateful growl of contentment hums in his throat for your existence. Winding his arms firmly behind your back, a climbing caress follows up the ridge of your spine to clutch you tighter. Anchored fully in the security of fondness found in your embrace, he tries once again to summon the words – they emerge, a secreted whisper upon your ear.

“Seeing what he was capable of, knowing his thoughts, so similar to mine – to look into that mirror and perceive what I would have become if not for Sam and Dean’s friendship, if I’d never learned what it feels like to … to-” he falters, confidence wavering in affront to the significance of what he’s about to confess and what it will change between you. Surely after everything you’ve been through together, you _know_ ; and yet doubt forever dogs his conviction, viciously barks qualms, and nips at his heels for each step he dares take in pursuit of personal fulfillment.

Kneading the nervous knots coiling at his shoulders, you incline backward to examine his features in earnest. “To what, Cas?”

The candor contained in your countenance, the collected pinpricks of light sparkling as a universe in the swirling color of your irises and burgeoning black of pupils, the sanctuary he perceives therein, a desire to lose himself in you unlike anything he has ever experienced before, overcomes all doubt. “To” –fingers braced at your nape, tips splaying to tenderly cradle your head, he leans in to impart the answer directly upon your lips– “ _love_.”

Breathing in the single syllable sentiment, you surrender to the pliant mold of his mouth and insistent exploration of tongue. The hot honeyed taste of him flows thickly over teeth, tongue, and down your throat where arousal roots and blossoms; fronds of passionate fire unfurl from your heart, torrid tendrils traverse flesh and limb. Body pleasantly ablaze, overwhelmed outside-in by the seraph, your mind dizzies itself in a swoon.

Releasing you from the all-encompassing kiss, he bolsters your swaying body and rests his forehead to yours while you gasp to regain breath.

You blink several times to compel your blurred vision to refocus on his besotted blues. “L-love? Are you saying-?”

He nods, nosing your cheek and smiling against your questioningly parted lips before you can finish the question.

“Mmm-me too,” you mumble into the kiss, chirruping in surprise when he swiftly scoops you by the waist to spin you round, pinning your body between his quickening vessel and the hood. The bumper below you squeaks, breaks free, and bounces into the dirt in inanimate comment to his vigor.

Lavishing kisses along your jaw, his lips latch to your neck where it lolls to expose the unsullied side for him to savor. Easing you onto your back, his fingers dip beneath the hem of your shirt, delightfully ticklish in their calloused fumbling and tearing buttons from flannel in impatience. His thumb tarries at the strap and padded barrier of your bra; tracing the laced edging to the center of your torso to unlatch the hook, he moves his ministrations – molten kisses melting downward – to the newly bared breasts. Nipples pertly bud in the humid breeze of his breath, gentle brush of fingertips, and rough twirl of his tongue.

Teasing your fingers through his hair, legs wrapping his hips to draw him nearer in a bid for friction, a needful moan of his name mingles misty into the cool of night.

He stops to peer up at you, blue eyes blown to oblivion when they meet your fevered gaze.

“Cas,” you say his name again, giving a tug at a fistful of his hair. “Angel, need you … _now_.” You need him before the interruption of a rainstorm, a Winchester, a witch, a road trip, or a rift can interfere. Maybe you have hours, maybe only minutes, however much time you have before the next intrusion upon your intimacy, you don’t intend to squander it wondering or _waiting_. Groping a hand between your bodies, you grasp and yank at his belt buckle just in case what you need from him isn’t clear.

“Now,” he echoes your demand aloud in a husked rasp – understanding eradicates all but the slimmest rim of sapphire sparkle from his eyes. Understanding hastily shoves pants and boxers down around his muscular thighs as you wriggle out of your jeans and pull him back to your body using his tie for leverage.

“Now,” you whisper the word across his lips, gazes locked as he reaches down to stroke the thick curve of his cock, positioning and sinking into your slick.

Bliss flutters your lashes. Balance bending backward, you brace your elbows on the hood.

Broad hands cup your bare buttocks to guide you closer, your sultry skin sticky as it slides across the metal hood until he buries himself fully into your silken heat and drops his chin to your clavicle with a low worshipful growl. Tilting your pelvis to adjust to the divine burn of deep penetration, you tighten your walls in a pulse of encouragement. His hips piston and slam forward – the _now_ no longer needs saying.

Half-dressed, urgently coupling beneath a starless apocalyptically hued sky, survivors, human and angel from different worlds, it’s certainly not the love you imagined – it’s so much _better_.


	22. The Devil Made Me Do It

Low rising rays of sunlight caress the cracked glass of the windshield; beams catch the cuts of crystal, sheeting you and the angel tucked together in the backseat of a derelict Volkswagen beneath a beige blanket of trench coat in a glinting shower of gold. Gaze trained toward the wakening yellow world beyond the glazed glass, dawn light reflecting in his blues, Cas lifts his cheek from where it rests upon a pillow of passion-tangled hair to peer at the sleep-limp form cradled in his arms. He admires the softness of your slumbering features, lines of tension smoothed away save for the hint of a contented smile dimpling the corner of your mouth; lips stained deeply pink and crease-roughened from his kisses part slightly in regular shallow exhalation.

The angel would happily stay here holding you, like this, forever. Well, perhaps not exactly _here_.

Nearby, penetrating the cocoon of comfort, the school bus engine squeals and cranks to life; the motor’s steady purr thrums the otherwise still morning atmosphere, initiating a throng of motion in the resistance encampment.

It’s time to go.

Cas traces the pad of a finger across the tranquil stretch of flesh above your brow, murmuring your name in a low note to gently rouse you.

The skin stirs in a swirl beneath the tip; a sigh of reluctance – resonating a few loosely strung syllables of complaint in ceding to consciousness – flares your nostrils at the disturbance of your seraphim-induced serenity.

Snagging your jaw with a hooked forefinger to bend your aspect upward, he whispers a kiss of apology over the trembling landscape of plush pouting lips, answering the aversion contained in the incoherent moan with a soothing sentiment of, “Wake, my love.”

The words arouse an aching echo of the night’s pleasures in weary limbs. Yawning, you reflexively curl closer to the celestial warmth of his vessel, the cool caress of the cabin air over bared breasts as the drape of his coat drags downward going unnoticed in the balmy heat of his embrace. Liberating your lovingly caught chin with a squirm, you bury a burgeoning Cheshire cat grin into the unbuttoned collar of his shirt. “Mornin’, my angel,” you mumble against the cloth.

The arm encasing your waist circles tighter, he brushes a smiling kiss to your forehead and closes his eyes. Maybe you can squander just a few more minutes cherishing the moment; this closeness – the intimacy shared – it feels so very _right_ to a being accustomed to everything he touches going _wrong_. Despite the doubt creeping in that in his experience good always comes at a cost of bad to maintain a cosmic balance, gratitude glistens his lid fettered lashes – surely he has given enough and you exist as his equilibrium.

Knuckles sharply thwack the window where Cas’ shoulder leans. A pair of sparkling amber orbs looms outside, staring in at your starting figures within; smug amusement simmers in the shine, incapacitating the scolding seriousness otherwise comprising Gabriel’s attempted scowl. “Rise and shine, lovebirds. The bus is leaving. Like, _literally_.”

“We-we’re coming,” Cas stutters, fidgeting fingers focused on protecting your modesty from Gabe’s prowling gaze.

“So I heard. I’m pretty sure _everyone_ heard. Was that five or six times? Cause a few of us started taking bets – I’ve got a cool grand riding on the orgasmic advantages of angelic endurance.” The archangel crooks a brow askance.

Cas’ countenance reddens at the disclosure. In retrospect, he can’t deny having gotten carnally carried away, garnering immense satisfaction at hearing you scream his name and losing himself, gutturally growling, resetting your delight-devastated nerves with a sweep of grace and redoubling his efforts to increase the deafening decibel of your pleasure each time you came undone.

Reaching across your blushingly silenced seraph, you smack a warning palm to the glass. “Scram!” you squeeze the demand between gritted teeth, clenched not in anger, but to subdue a snicker over the fact that, senses submerged in ecstasy, you completely lost the capacity to count; you’re not even sure how, or when, you came to occupy in the car.

“Fine, fine. I’d tell you not to get your panties in a twist, but-” Waggling his eyebrows, Gabe raises a familiar and hastily discarded satin garment into view – the skimpy lace-trimmed number entirely impractical in nature for navigating the ruins of an apocalypse but perfectly tailored to accentuate feminine wiles definitely belongs to you. Satisfied by the crimson hue of surprise hotly shading his brother’s cheeks and yours, he straightens, nonchalantly secures the forsaken unmentionable in a pocket for God only knows what reason, and conceals a smirk with the turn of his torso.

You sit up, shivering in sudden notice of the brisk temperature, fishing at your feet for anything to cover your naked body.

Cas follows, chasing the lost contact to lay his lips on the goose-prickled canvas of your back as he fastens the buttons of his shirt and re-knots his tie; the muscles move beneath his lips as you search for clothes. “Gabriel can be-”

“A real prick?” you offer, finding your rumpled tee, jacket, bra, and jeans in the foot well. You assume the missing boots are somewhere in the vicinity, the archangel’s pockets not being large enough to swallow those.

“Yes. I do believe that is an apt descriptor.” Cas noses the point of your shoulder, relinquishing the spot of skin to help you shimmy the shirt over your head.

The engine of the bus guns, fueling the fury of your fingers to slide denim up cramped legs, a final call to hop on the life raft to a new world. “C’mon, Let’s go!”

Cas pushes the creaky-hinged door wide, stands, stuffs his shirt into his trousers, secures the zipper and unlatched buckle of his belt, and stoops pick up the pair of boots beside the deflated rot-rubber of the rear tire.

You swing out your legs, squinting against the brightness of an unusually unclouded sky, trade him the trench coat for the boots, and stick your sockless feet into the leather soles, not bothering with the laces.

Cas thrusts out a hand to help you up.

Accepting the chivalrous aid, you fall in step alongside the seraph. He snugs his fingers to secure you close, wordlessly indicating his intent not to let go until you are safe and _home_.

“Cas! Just in time,” Dean shouts, seeing your approach; the hunter’s attention flits briefly to the entwined hands swinging between you and the angel. He spares a fleeting smile. As far as he’s concerned the development calls for a freaking celebration replete with champagne, but now and here are neither the time nor place. His ephemeral gladness dissolves. “You two, on the bus with Lucifer. Mom’s in the back, Bobby’s on point, and I need your eyes up front, got it?”

Cas nods, the gravity of what Dean is asking for abundantly clear – he wants Cas watching the devil for signs of danger, not the road.

“Good,” Dean rasps, “we got one chance and less than two hours.” He leaves the remainder unsaid – the endless number of variables that could go wrong and get them all dead, or worse.

The sinew of Cas’ grip stiffens as Lucifer meanders past, the devil’s arm affectionately arranged across Jack’s shoulders and a self-satisfied grin creasing his cheeks as he casts a smug glance backward at a trailing Sam.

You rub reassurance up and down the angel’s arm.

“What happened?” Cas asks in a hushed tone as Sam sidles up.

“Don’t ask,” Sam mutters, his mouth pressed into a thin and pale strip.

As the boy and his father part ways, Dean ushers the Nephilim into the Jeep to ride alongside Gabe. Bow-legs clambering into the driver’s seat, the elder Winchester gestures for you all to quit standing around and get moving.

Cas strides forward, pivoting to look into your eyes as you cover the short distance to the bus. Whatever happiness lit the lines of his stoic aspect before is smothered again by solemnity. “No matter what happens, don’t let go,” he says.

“Okay,” you agree. You squeeze his hand, a clasp so firm your own fingers tingle and if he were human he’d be imploring, _Mercy!_ With the cinch, you include a prayer. ‘ _You either.’_

_Never_ , he thinks, pausing at the bus’s door. “And don’t-” His emphasis and his eyes roll backward to indicate Lucifer.

Satan is smiling, drumming to some song only he can hear on the steering wheel.

“Don’t let him get under your skin,” Cas finishes, shifting to push you up the stairs ahead of him.

You slip into the seat directly behind the devil, near enough to make out each strand of unruly dirty blond hair lidding his vessel’s scalp.

“Heya bro!” Lucifer flashes a sinister smile and winks as Cas ascends to join you. “If the trailer’s rockin’ don’t come knockin,’ eh?”

Cas merely squints in response to the provocation. He perches beside you, setting a palm on your thigh.

Lucifer shifts the bus into gear, accelerating the straining diesel machinery into a steady lurch on a rigid and unforgiving suspension into the whirlwind of dust kicked up by the Jeep. Silence not being the devil’s strength, he lowers his voice to a reflective octave, observing, “Don’t think I don’t know what you were doing out there all night, Castiel.” Having possessed Cas and cohabited his vessel, he knows precisely how to push the seraph’s buttons to incite a reaction and maximize pain.

The taper of Cas’ lids intensifies. He rises to the bait, snorting, “And what is it you think I was doing?”

Lucifer’s spine relaxes into the seat, confident, contemplating aloud, “I get it, you’re jealous of the bond I have with my son. I don’t blame you for wanting to sow some wild oats of your own. Fatherhood’s a pretty sweet deal.” It’s a rich assumption, suggesting Cas is simply using you as a surrogate to gestate a Nephilim. It illustrates Lucifer’s total dismissal of all emotion entering a given equation save that which is self-serving. It would never occur to him in a billion years that Cas loves you.

You lay your palm over where Cas’ claims your thigh to ensure him you don’t give any credence to what Lucifer says.

Ignoring his advice to you on the subject, Cas sasses back, “I’m not envious of what you _think_ exists between you and Jack. Which, by the way, is _nothing_.” In a roundabout way he’s doing as Dean asked – keeping Lucifer distracted, even if it is at his personal expense.

“Sure you aren’t, _Casanova_ ,” Lucifer swallows a chortle, charges around a curve of road a little too quickly and careens the passengers against the windows and into the aisle. Cas cushions you with his body, bracing himself on the post and simultaneously snagging Bobby by the coat collar to prevent him from vacating the open threshold by centrifugal force.

“Sorry!” Looking over his shoulder, Lucifer gesticulates a disingenuous wave of apology. “Sorry folks, won’t happen again.” Mildly disappointed to see Mary’s outline still obstinately occupying the rear door. He takes the next turn equally as fast and would slam on the brakes to ensure success if the bus actually had them.

“Hey, asshat!” You smack the back of Lucifer’s head, inciting not a smart sting of pain, but a scorch upon his pride. The choice of insult emerges as pure coincidence, for Cas hasn’t told you the story of Stull Cemetery and their stand there against Lucifer, _yet_. Steadying Bobby, the seraph is too late to stop you from saying more. “I suggest you keep your mind off Cas’ love life and keep your eyes on the road.”

If not for a single word in the middle of the statement – _love_ – and the boundless possibilities of pain it contains for how he could use it against Castiel, the devil would’ve snapped his twitching fingers then and there to dissolve you, molecule by molecule, into human soup and considered in epic poetry. Instead, he lifts his foot _off_ the accelerator to coast around the bend ahead, gets a good look at you by adjusting the wobbling rearview mirror, and sneers.


	23. Begin the Begin

“Careful there – last step’s a doozy.” Cementing a callous grip around your bicep to prop up the feet faltering on the final bus stair as you flounder into his looming person, Lucifer’s unkindly grin-framed chuckle singes your cheek. He resists your off-balance efforts to wriggle away, fixing his fingers further into the denim fabric of your jacket and the bruisingly insulted flesh below until a panged whimper rouses in your throat and unshed tears blear your vision. The sound of suffering sparks a ring of red round the merciless pitch of his pupils.

Boot having missed the step as though it were a mere mirage of solidity, dazed both by the clumsy landing jolting up your spine to slam together teeth and the sulphur tinge suffusing his breath, you can’t tell if you were accidentally shoved from behind by another refugee eager to exit, or if the fall is some devilish retribution for the ill-advised slap of his head earlier.

You immediately regretted the action given the oddly cool effect on his demeanor and Cas’ worry-wrought glance at you, the crevicing of his brow seeming to entreat _why_. You know angels – _all_ angels – represent a threat, with archangels’ whims and propensity to power trip as stand ins for God plying the worst type of peril, but the escape from this world into that other where everything is different, the connection you share with Cas and the rawness of his reciprocated feelings, these experiences dulled the gravity of danger, lessened your wariness, and subdued the common sense required to contain a stupid reflex to swat the devil to stop his incessant rambling and chaotic driving like the buzz of an irritating fly – a mistake of being too familiar. Regardless of the _how_ of the tumble, no sentiment of thanks stirs on your tongue for the rudely firm rescue.

Hearing the tumult, rift-bent regard revolving to check on you, Cas bristles; a protective gleam of blue ignites in his irises when he sees Lucifer’s coarse clasp. Unhesitating to sacrifice himself in your defense, he wedges a shielding arm into the sliver of space separating you and flicks the angel blade into his inflexible fist. “Let. Her. _Go_ ,” he growls, cadence clipped, through the set of his jaw. Shoulders squaring, wings bereft of their full-feathered glory – somehow more inimitable in menace given the scarcity of plumes and jagged scars illustrating the seraph’s tenacity for surviving defeat to rise again and again – swish up and out, shadowing out the sun-filtered sky behind in a starkly silhouetted show of warning.

Brown crusts of leaves churn in a tornadic uprising around you, giving the distinct impression of a gale wind driving downward from above and betraying the divine origin of the upheaval in the electric tingle charging the air.

Not wanting to risk spoiling his own escape and father-son reunion with a confrontation over an inconsequential _human_ , Lucifer’s grasp loosens; palm lifting, the digits splay in appeasement and move to scratch through his hay-hued hair as though nothing untoward happened. “Just sayin,’ it’d be a real shame to stumble this close to safety.” It’s uncertain whether he’s referring to you, or administering the advice aloud to himself; he shrugs, clears his nose with a disinterested sniff, and shoves the offending deeper into the dirty blond tufts.

Castiel’s wings shudder, reluctantly rumple and withdraw, skeptical in their rustling retreat of the devil’s duplicity.

You touch trembling fingers to your angel’s balled fist, tender trace of the tips over his knuckles and tucking of them into the tractable palm assuring him you’re okay.

_“Cas, Ketch – show ‘em how it’s done!”_ The urgency deepening Dean’s directive to demonstrate the leap between worlds for the others to follow leaves no time for further speculation or contests of celestial machismo.

Locking his hand fast around your wrist, Cas leads you toward the wavering bolt of energy, nudging you ahead by the waist as you near.

“Okay then, catch you two on the other side.” Lucifer issues a promissory salute and inserts himself into the horde of apocalypse deportees – patience isn’t a virtue in his vocabulary, but sometimes a cat must wait for the opportune moment to pounce on an unwitting mouse.

The last either of you sees of his sinister smirk before being engulfed in the rift’s golden glow, Sam halts him mid-stride with the butt of a rifle, and whatever words the Winchester utters blunt the edges of his engraved smugness.

* * * * *

The celebratory atmosphere of the bunker thrills with conversation, clinking of liquor laden glassware, and the soft metal pop and fizz of beer bottles opened. Arms looped round his waist, you snuggle the seraph listening to Dean relate the detail of Gabriel’s dauntless and unselfish change of heart to go tête-à-tête with Michael in a bid to buy time. Cas rests a palm over your shoulder, fingertips absent-mindedly stretched in seeking out the exposed rim of a rose-flushed spot near your collarbone, skin gilded with a mark of passion he place there hours ago and a world away.

Sam approaches, thick amber whiskey sloshing in his glass as he scales the steps.

Tongue dryly swiping over your teeth, you’re reminded it’s been over a day since you properly ate or drank anything substantial. You sneak a caress beneath Cas’ suit coat, tickling his torso through the white cotton of his dress shirt to garner his attention. Peering up into his inquiring blues, you ask, “Babe, you want a beer?”

The term of endearment curls up the pouting corners of his pink mouth in fondness, brightening the solemnity veiling his aspect as he processes the loss of Gabe. He wags his chin to indicate _no_ , missing the warmth of your body as he watches you wander into the map room where the beverages sit by the case upon the table.

Once you’re beyond earshot, he fetters his focus to Dean. What he’s longing for is _good_ news, not bad. “And what about Lucifer?” Ever since the bus, he’s been unable to shake the nagging apprehension founded in the archangel’s sudden silence in response to your rebuke. When the devil isn’t deluging the air with snake-tongued syllables, he’s seething, and that kind of meditative thinking means one thing – _trouble_. He felt immense relief to witness the rift close without Lucifer reentering this world, yet doubt lingers, darkening the lightness of manifest victory.

“Sam handled it,” Dean indicates his brother with a nod.

Cas looks to Sam for confirmation, searches his fatigue-pallid and unsmiling face for decidedly absent tell-tale signs of a long-awaited cathartic triumph.

The younger Winchester’s conflict-infused hazels briefly meet the heavenly blue and break off with a nebulous bob of the head to stare into the whisky.

The angel determines the silence to mean that whatever ultimately happened remains unknown because when Sam stepped through the rift, Lucifer was left _alive_. _Why_ – when they had the chance to kill him after he was wounded by Michael – is beyond the Cas’ comprehension. His mouth molds to form the word _what_ , as in, ‘ _What happened?!’_ Less question, more exclamation.

“And hell, buddy,” –Dean claps his friend on the back, so hard Cas shuffles his weight foot to foot to reset his wobbling knees– “you came through with a personal win, too. You got the girl!” The hunter means it, he’s happy for him; he’s also distracting from Sam’s palpable distress by keeping the angel from probing for a deeper explanation.

Your laugh – easy and relaxed, unburdened and free of fear – as you exchange a few words with one of the refugees, the young woman, Maggie, they travelled through the vampire infested tunnels with, strikes Cas’ perception through Dean’s posturing for positivity. Finding you across the room, the foreboding flees from his features to mirror your merriment when you sense the heat of his gaze and flash him a smile.

Dean’s right, he realizes – he does have you; the angel simply isn’t used to trusting anything in life save the eventuality of failure. Exhaling his unease in a purgative sigh, he breathes in the bolstering recognition of the good winding her way through the throng of people toward him as Bobby calls for a speech, thanking Sam and Dean, and welcoming them to the family as Cas welcomes you into his arms, pressing you to his vessel’s steadily drumming heart.


	24. Heaven is a Place on Earth

Staring into the two by two crate repurposed as luggage overflowing with _stuff_ set on the end of the bed, the surge of a smile crests your cheeks. The gladness arises not from the realization the relatively small container holds more superfluous crap than you’ve owned in years – most of the items totally unnecessary for basic survival and impractical for travelling light – it’s the notion of putting down roots, calling somewhere home, and having the comfort of _someone_ with which to share the physical and emotional space such a home represents that draws out the manifestation of pure delight.

Grasp sliding along the sides of the wooden box to lock into the notched handles, ginger on the roughened surface to avoid splinters, you drift a final glimpse around the stripped bunker room where you first woke up in this strange and wonderful world – the very same day you met a seraph who challenged your beliefs about celestial beings and whose kindness and persistent, although not always _patient_ , concern changed everything. 

It was Cas’ idea, _moving in_ – air quotes implicit – with him. Practically speaking, since you spend whatever free time you have together, well, _together_ , the proposal made sense; especially considering other refugees live crammed into storage cells sleeping on stacks of dusty file folders in lieu of mattresses and stowing their sundries on shelves lined with lore books in languages too ancient to comprehend.

“Oh, uh, sorry-” a voice pitched to tinny heights by nerves meekly announces itself from the shadow of the hall door standing ajar.

Your glance shifts to a girl burdened beneath a backpack and shrouded in stained jeans and a tattered olive-colored jacket ringed by a dingy faux-fur collar. You recognize the youthful porcelain features and furtively darting eyes of the young woman and smile warmly. “Hi, Maggie. Come on in.”

In an undertaking of momentous effort given the weight strapped to her shoulders, she strains a step inward and bends, nearly buckling to the floor with it as the backpack lands inside the threshold with a dense thud. Evidently she never caught on to the adage of packing light. Nevertheless, she survived. “Sam said this room would be open in the afternoon-” She peers at a non-existent watch on her wrist, rubs the bare flesh in self-conscious habit, and hides the whole hand in her pocket. “I-I guess I’m a little early.”

“Right on time,” you reassure. Without the fallout filtered shine of the sun, you’re not yet used to reckoning time here in the artificially-lit depths of the bunker either. “I was just clearing out.” Focus flitting to the hole in her pocket where her buried fingers fidget, you remember a magenta jacket worn once mixed in amidst your surplus bounty of belongings. “Hey, I have something you might like.” Rifling through the box, you yank out the article and toss it in her direction.

She dives to catch the fabric projectile, strokes the satiny finish, admires the color, and stares up at you; an unuttered – _Are you sure?_ – glimmers in her wide-eyed gaze.

“I don’t really need two coats, you know?”  You resettle the rumpled contents of the crate. “And the color compliments you.”

“Thank you!” She beams; the gift, along with the compliment, opens the proverbial floodgates of sociability. “You’re with the angel, right?”

_Right_. The skin on your nape crawls – the bunker’s a tiny place these days with so many people occupying it and every single one of them damn well knows you’re _with_ the angel. Sam made it a point to involve you in aiding the other survivors as they adapt to this world in order to break down the barriers of your angelic intimacy inhibiting them from trusting you. You get it – once upon a time you thought all angels were dicks, too. Defensive instinct kicks in at her comment. “His _name_ is Castiel.” You direct the grit of the answer into the tenseness of the fists grabbing the edges of the box. A sliver punctures your pinky.

She looks at her feet, blushing, apologetic. “I didn’t mean-” she mumbles, meets your eyes to express sincerity– “I meant, what’s it like? Being with-”

“An angel?” you finish the query, biting the inside of your lower lip in self-recrimination for getting riled over the friendly conversation of a curious and grateful girl. “Sorry, I just … I’ve heard some of what the others say about us. He’s a good guy and what we have, it feels really … _normal_.”

“Normal-” She smiles, irises wistfully glazing and rolling upward in reflection– “that sounds nice.”

Heaving the box up to balance on the slope of your hip, you clasp her arm commiseratively as you shimmy past, ignoring the shard of wood stinging your skin. “I’ve learned anything is possible in this world. You can have that now, too – normal, _nice_. It’s safe here. _I promise_.”

“Safe.” She mouths the word, swallows the syllable in wonderment as you disappear into the hallway. Spinning to study the barren beige walls of the room, seeing possibilities in the blank canvas, bending to pick up her pack and drag it toward the dresser, she says the word again, imbuing the sound with confidence of truth. Of belief. “ _Safe_.”

Perception perked, smile snagged at the corner of his mouth, Cas follows the sweetly noted treasure of a song to the yawning entryway of his quarters; his, he reminds himself, and as of today, _yours_ , too. He stops to watch your figure swaying in front of the dresser, humming an unidentifiable and melodic tune as you fold pieces of clothing and tuck them into the drawers.

With you inhabiting the space, the light of the room glows significantly warmer; the cold décor seems somehow cozier. The room was never one he sought out before, never a place he felt a particular connection to aside from the fact Dean deemed number 15 as officially in angelic possession when it became clear the heavenly dispossessed being had unofficially blessed the bunker as his official home base; Dean happened to be half in the bag drunk that night and the bestowment of the bedroom may have been purely so the hammered hunter could slur some smirked joke about an _Inception_ -style movie meta of an occupied vessel occupying a room.

The muffled shutting of the top drawer and scrape asunder of the one below tugs Cas into the present. He worried asking you to stay with him so early in your relationship might be perceived as presumptuous on his part. This world may be novel to you, but as an angel the navigational nuances of a loving liaison exist in a land foreign to him – one discovered, explored, and mapped out piece by piece with every moment you share. There’s no doubt in his heart and mind he loves you; and yet, he is also learning _how_ to love you day by day.

Heeding to the guidance of the naturally arising – albeit frequently hedonistic in origin – impulses afflicting his vessel when in your presence has proven useful. He succumbs to one such an urge now, treading noiselessly across the threshold to slot his body against yours; skimming his hands over your stomach, he sinks his stubbly chin to your neck to stamp a kiss upon the delicate skin. “How was your day, my love?”

Laughter of surprise lilting your tongue, folded tee held aloft in your fingers tumbling to the floor, you relax into his rigid physique and stretch your neck to give his ticklish affections ample and unrestricted access. “Good – _great,_ now that you’re here. How’d it go with the ghoul?”

He groans, a vibration of breath ghosting your ear.

“That good, huh?” you tease. In the mirror mounted above the dresser, you observe him nuzzle the sensitive spot below your ear until, lashes lowering in delight, you shudder and squirm, weak-kneed with a knot of anticipation forming in your belly.

They – he, Sam, and Dean in a tag-team trio – have tried to set a routine of hunting to keep Jack distracted, to train those of the refugees who are willing to fight a different foe. No one is talking about the impossibility of returning to the apocalypse world to take Michael to task. Deep down, for all the speeches and good intentions, no one really wants to go back; and without an archangel, that door is mercifully _closed_.

When he lets up in his worshipful ministrations, your eyelids flutter open to meet the eclipsed blue of his reflected gaze. “I missed you, angel.”

“I missed you, too.” His fingertips test the heated waters of flesh beneath the hem of your shirt, sparking grace where they caress and a blissful aching in your nethers. “I heard you praying – perceived your _longing_.” The digits wander below your navel, lifting the elastic band of your shorts to stray further still. “Those prayers – they’re inappropriate as far as holy entreaties go, don’t you think?” Arching a brow, the smile brimming to scrunch his eyes and nose tells you he enjoyed every licentious word.

“Yes, Cas,” you purr, less acknowledgment of impiousness, more yearning. Fingers wrap the seraph’s wrist and push his pursuit of your pleasure permissively toward its goal.

“Dean found another case,” he murmurs and nips at the shell of your earlobe, “we leave in a few hours.”

“So soon?” You gasp the last word, thighs trembling as his fingers and their tingling grace glide home to sheath your senses from all but the seraph’s touch.

He groans again into your neck, softly speaks in a gravelly choked cadence you’ve come to comprehend is Enochian. You don’t know the precise meaning; you can guess.


	25. Corollaries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for minor (canon in ep 13X23) character death.

Raining cats and dogs. Under the weather. Flying by the seat of one’s pants. Speak of the _devil_.

Castiel never fully appreciated the expressionistic origin of idioms peppering human speech until he glimpsed the vibrant magenta of your jacket fitted to a lifeless female form lying on the leaf-littered trail ahead and he experienced the resultant  precipitous leaping of his heart into the upper echelons of his throat.

Swallowing hard against the ‘ _What if it were you? What if I failed to protect her?’_ rise of anxiety to relocate the obstinate organ back into his vessel’s ribcage where it belongs, he closes his eyes in concentrated effort; in the lidded distancing from the light of day, he reminds himself the shattered shell, limbs limp and radiating residual heat, crumpled in the mist of cooling rain belonged to some other unfortunate soul, _not_ you. 

He left you safe in the bunker’s kitchen, breathing, physically intact, and very much alive, as you helped prep a mass lunch for the multitudes mere minutes ago. The knowledge, the fresh imprint in his mind’s eye of the slight questioning smile hovering on your mouth soundlessly saying you expected to hear the story later as an agitated and secretive Sam dragged him away from the task of scrubbing dishes to help handle a situation – _this_ situation – however comforting in recollection, barely makes a diminishing dent in his reflexive fright at the sight of your jacket and the scent of you still lingering in the damp cloth mingling with the unmistakable odor of raw death.

The hitch and pause in his gait, the sharp gasp and blanching of pink lips as they press tautly together – the outer projections of disquiet as he battles to suppress his rebellious nerves and rapidly beating heart – presents the split-second opportunity for Jack to sprint past the distracted seraph.

“Maggie!” the boy shouts. Surging ahead, he circumvents Mary and Bobby on the well-worn path where they stand sentinel, gravely watching over the dead girl. Ruddy cheeks paling, his sneaker slips in the mossy earth, smearing through bloodied mud as he stumbles around the boulder where she drew a final breath and collapsed.

Sam’s lengthy stride and rational senses move him to the site in time to prohibit Jack from disturbing the scene further; grappling with the Nephilim’s shoulder to hold him back from kneeling to take the girl up in his arms, he manages to keep the boy from eroding what little detail remains that might clue them in to what happened.

“I-I said I’d protect her, and,” Jack’s guilty lament suspends fog-like in the air as he speaks, fingers uselessly flexing and balling into fists, “Sam…”

Cas forces his feet to convey him closer to the carnage. Blinking between Jack’s anguished aspect and the waterlogged coat, he tears his focus from the more personally emotionally unsettling elements to study the statically fixed girlish features of Maggie’s corpse; the peaceful ghostly skin-shade of pre-rigor smoothing the minute muscles of her face is perverted by brightly painted crimson where the bone cracks cleanly at her temple; rivulets of blood and rain mat her hair, the latter diluting the congealed edges of the fatal wound.

“Stop, Jack. This isn’t your fault,” Sam consoles in the rain-pattered hush, stating what they all – save the grief-stricken Jack – are thinking.

A pang of empathy at Jack feeling personally responsible for whatever befell her resonates in Castiel’s heart; the angel knows from long practice it’s often easier to assume self-blame and contend with the tangibility of failure in place of the seemingly unsurmountable impossibility of accepting that senseless tragedies do happen no matter how many vows one makes to prevent their occurrence. For all the fight for a righteous cause, free will and destiny coalesce into unpredictable outcomes. It’s a hard lesson to learn – one with which the angel constantly grapples and one made bearable by the bonds of friendship and love.

“What happened to her?” Dean huskily murmurs the question as if uttering it aloud will provide an instantaneous answer.

At the thought, Cas casts his blues skyward at the roiling grey abyss of clouds above; tiny droplets of rain smatter and collect on his unshaven cheeks, blending with the brimming brine of unshed tears to pool in the divot of his chin when his gaze again drops to settle on the distraught boy. If he could, he’d take this pain from Jack; he knows, in their way, Sam and Dean feel the same; since that feat is not within the realm of possibilities, perhaps Dean’s on to something and they can relieve the burden some by figuring out what really happened here.

“I don’t know. Doesn’t look supernatural,” Mary supplies to flesh out the unknowable.

Cas silently concurs with the assessment; some _one_ , not some _thing_ killed Maggie. Given the ambient air temperature, the wicking capabilities of water to rapidly cool core body heat, the angel determines the girl can’t have been left here more than a handful of hours ago.

Always ready with a surly remark in any incarnation, Bobby pipes in, “Looks like some son of a bitch beat on her until…”

“Who would do something like this?” Interrupting, regard drawn once more to the magenta fabric, remembering your walks together on this very same stretch of trail, the solitary outings you’ve taken since trusting in your safety, Castiel masks the fear in his tone with anger.

_A lesser being might call it a tragic case of mistaken identity; for Lucifer, it was a fairly typical Thursday evening with a dash of prodigious fate thrown in for fun. The single regret clouding his glee and veiling the red glow of his pupils as the girl’s skull broke with a satisfying pop and an even more gratifying gurgle against the unforgiving mass of the boulder on the third strike was that – although she initially tricked his senses into thinking she was you wandering in the wilderness on account of outerwear absolutely reeking of his brother – she was not actually you._

_Unfortunate for fulfilling his nefarious need to revenge an innocuous smack upside the head back on the bus, certainly; although he wouldn’t characterize it as a mistake. He knew before he throttled the scream in her throat and flicked her – sputtering for air like a boneless fish – onto the ground he had the wrong refugee. Too bad for her, on he devil’s non-existent moral compass, wrong exists as just as compelling a direction as right._

Finishing up the last of the dishes in the sink, you lay a gleaming plate carefully on the pile with a clink to dry and swipe the wetness coating your hands across the towel tucked into the waistband of your jeans. At the familiar bass angelic utterance of your name, you turn toward the doorway.

“Cas!” The smile skirting your mouth falters into a frown at the serious etch of lines hardening his countenance. Yanking the towel free and tossing it aside, you navigate the counter between you with an arm extended to meet him halfway. “What happened?” Your fingers delve beneath the hem of his coats, flattening to the rigid plane of his torso.

“We need to talk.” He peers beyond your fretfully widening eyes at the two other apocalypse expats currently inhabiting the space to aid in lunch clean up. One of them averts her inquisitive gaze back to the tabletop she’s polishing. “Leave us,” he growls; the order emerges significantly less kind than he is capable of being. “You too.” He gestures at the young man organizing a shelf.

“Cas,” you hiss chidingly under your breath, prodding his side. You’ve made great strides these past weeks in terms of angelic PR and here he is throwing everything out the window with rudeness.

He rolls his eyes almost imperceptibly. _Almost_. There isn’t time for niceties given the circumstances, although he knows you’re right. “I need to speak to Y/N alone. Leave us, _please_ ,” he amends and softens the request, punctuating his words with a strained smile for their benefit. It’s disingenuous, yet you appreciate the effort.

You mouth a polite _thank you_ to your nodding cohorts for their understanding as they abandon their chores to slink out into the hall.

Upon their exit, Castiel engulfs you in a hug.

“Hey, I’ve got you,” you whisper, acquiescing to his tender demand for contact; rubbing circles into his back, sliding a palm to comb the chestnut curls at his nape, you wait for an explanation for his strange behavior.

Standing there, he lets the heat of you sink into his shrouded skin; he listens to the steady thrum of your heart and shallow respiration of life moving in and out of your lungs until nothing but the grounding succor of your body and soul quiet his senses. Exhaling a sigh into the crook of your neck, he shudders against you and pulls away to look into your eyes. Grey glints of somberness gild his irises. “Maggie’s dead.”

“Wh-what?”

“Mary and Bobby found her body in the woods, on the trail leading to town. That’s what Sam-”

“An accident?”

Regard falling to the sliver of space between you, he shakes his head.

You suck in a juddering breath. Choking on a wave of guilt, you remember your conversation when she took over your living quarters. “I-I told her it was safe here. I promised her-”

“This isn’t your fault. This isn’t anyone’s fault.” Repeating Sam’s earlier assertion to Jack – the words sounding no more reassuring to his ears than before – Cas folds you to his chest, tangles his fingers in your hair, and angles to kiss the top of your head. “We need your help. You’ve gotten to know these people better than any of us – is there anyone she was close to? Anyone who would know why she was out alone?”

“Yeah-” You nod in the solid casing of his embrace, sniffling back tears– “Allene. They’re friends.”

“Good, that’s good.” He balances a prickly cheek on your crown; feeling the warmth of your tears saturate his shirt, he resettles his arms to envelope you tighter.


	26. The World Ender

What they say about hindsight is true; if you knew, caught up in Castiel’s arms in the kitchen, bodies drawn so close together room to breathe barely existed as you comforted one another in the aftermath of Maggie’s death, that the tender moment would signify the beginning of a rapid and calamitous downward spiral of misfortune to befall the bunker and your seraph, you might have insisted on holding on to him just a smidgen longer.

Not long ago, your world ended; your life too – _nearly_. Providence interceded in the form a Winchester ferrying you here to find renewal of hope; a place wherein you embarked on a fresh start rooted and flourishing in an angel’s empathy and a rewriting of every experience, conception, and recollection you once wielded as a universal shield of truth to survive.

You couldn’t know, clasped head to chest, sniffling against the silk of his tie, tears darkening the navy cloth almost to black as your fingers sought the well-muscled slope of his spine and skimmed upward until they found the sensitive spot at the base of his shoulder blades eliciting a soft moan from his lips where they lay in a lingering kiss upon your scalp, that your very same savior’s rebelliously carved niche in this one, the sanctuary of support he welcomed you into, a family fixed to each other by bonds – not solely of blood, but of self-made fate, fierce loyalty, and love – was about to be torn asunder.

Not that any mediation could have occurred to alter the outcome. Once a rift is opened, in flesh or between two divergent worlds, flow of blood seemingly staunched by a ripped band-aid of spell work, the canvas of unseen space is weakened forevermore; there’s no mending it without leaving scars.

Naive, deafened to words of reason by a smoldering rage and guilt, Jack needed to be led astray by Lucifier’s lies – a lesson of greed for power learned too late leaving the Nephilim cosmically impotent.

Nor can destiny itself be fully caged, although the details, like the plot of a story, may be altered in revision – a showdown of apocalyptic proportions between two sets of brothers was ordained by God to occur in Detroit, and so it did in the shadow of a church alter in darkness flattered faintly by the fragmented glow of stained-glass and violently unbridled grace.

And Dean, well, the righteous man was always going to say, _“Yes,”_ to Michael; Fate deigned that archangels must be defeated by a designated sword, and she can be forestalled for only so long.

So much of who Castiel is, what he fell for, fought for, and believed in dwell on the foundation of free will. Sam and Dean served proof to him of one’s ability to defy fate and choose their own destiny time and time again. Emulating the brothers’ boldness, choosing humanity over Heaven, doubt dogged the angel’s every step; but through the doubt, the concept of having choice seemed certain to him until now.

Now, he wonders if Dean ever had a choice at all; or, if the march of years merely delayed the inevitable. The weight of death, destruction, pain – emotional and physical – the blood shed in the name of _choice_ washed from his vessel’s hands yet nonetheless staining the calloused surface crimson as he stares down at where the palms limply spread in supplication on his knees, and the heavy regret muffling every beat of his angelic heart crumple the seraph’s frame where he sits on the map room stair.

“Cas?” The flutter of a black feather on the grey concrete floor at your feet, disturbed by your guardedly creeping movement around the corner, steals your focus as you peer into the library from the hall leading to the garage where you retreated with Mary and Bobby at Cas’ unyielding request when Michael stormed the bunker door.

Stooping, you pluck up the bedraggled plume in your fingertips; spying a bloodied mass of pulp at the end of the quill, you flinch and shrink back, fright tightening your throat. “Cas?” you repeat in a fear-stifled shout; glancing wildly beyond the strewn carnage of traumatically extricated feathers, books thrown from their shelves, and toppled tables and chairs, you see the angel’s silhouetted and unmoving figure slumped against the threshold. “Cas!” Lunging forward, tripping over a few stiff-spine tomes, you forget caution in favor of panic.

He stirs to look sideways as you near; stumbling down the stairs, you sink ungracefully next to him. You ignore the corpse of Michael’s meat suit in reclining repose against one of the far most pillars; it’s a sight that should be a relief, but nothing about Cas’ dampened blues and vacant gaze hollowed of hope remotely suggest a sense of relief; neither does the notable absence of the Dean.

The angel’s regard shifts slightly over your shoulder, chin somberly shaking at Mary and Bobby’s questioning faces where they followed in your frantic footsteps. You all half-hoped after Sam’s phone call saying he and Jack were alive, Lucifer was dead, and they couldn’t be sure of Dean because he disappeared with Michael, that perhaps against all odds Dean somehow returned to the bunker. The two hunters retreat in silence to give you space.

“What happened?” Reaching up, you brush a collection of unruly chestnut curls from Cas’ brow and compel his concentration to you.

Already pale lips crush into a taut line and blanch. Wet lashes lower and a subtle shiver of pain courses his vessel.

You mold a palm to the cool pallor of his cheek, swiping a thumb soothingly over the prickly skin.

He swallows the guilt girding his throat before speaking. “Dean said, ‘Yes.’ He let Michael in,” he pauses as if saying it aloud makes the reality infinitely more painful. Carrying blame for himself, his jaw tenses around an admission of defeat, “I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t-” Leaning into the warmth of your touch, eyes closing, his voice chokes in grief, “I couldn’t even _follow_ him.”

You suddenly understand the scattering of feathers and disarray of a struggle; Castiel tried to follow his friend in flight – tried with his whole heart in defiance of the damage to his wings, and failed. “Oh, angel.” Curling your fingers around his neck, you ease his head onto the pillow of your thighs. “It’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault,” you reassure, softly whispering as brine freely brims his lids.

“Everything we worked for,” he says between sobs, “it was all for nothing. It’s impossible to escape fate. Dean is lost. This world … it’s lost.”

Tenderly cradling the angel, showering him in light caresses so he knows he isn’t alone, you let his emotion drain, waiting until the jagged shallow jolt of his breath quiets with deeper regularity. Gaze drifting to the high ceiling of your new home, the angel you love lying on your lap, a reflective smile cavorts your countenance at a thought which undulates your tongue in speech. “I used to believe a lot of things were impossible – alternate realities, loving angels, second chances – then I met you and all that changed.”

Shifting at the curious statement, he straightens to peer into your aspect.

Smile stretching, you continue, “Nothing is impossible, it just seems that way until a door you didn’t know was there opens and you see what’s on the other side. We’ll find the right door, Cas.”

“You really believe that?” The question is moot, divine being or otherwise, he intuits your conviction without asking.

“You’re my proof.”

Gloom-dim irises glide searchingly between your fondly smile-creased eyes and the mirror image of himself reflected as evidence within their lustrous pupils. Seeing his echo afloat in a soulful sea of belief, leaning in to trace salt-laced lips over the smiling swell of yours, he can’t help but begin to believe too.


End file.
